Modified Hot Air Dryer by Leaf Stove for Banana Drying

In this paper, a modified hot air dryer by using leaf stove (MHAD_LS) was proposed for banana drying. The objectives of this research were to evaluate the efficiency of the leaf stove and the performance of MHAD_LS. The MHAD_LS system consisted of a drying chamber, heat exchanger in dryer, leaf stove and control system for using the speed adjustment on leaf feed motor and air feed motor to serve the thermal load. There were two experiments in this work. The first experiment was used to test the efficiency of the stove. It was found that the system efficiency was 18.68%. And the second experiment was used to find the performance of MHAD_LS which was performed in a partial-loop dryer at a drying air temperature and air velocity of 60 degrees C and 0.65 ms(-1) respectively. The recycle air ratio was 90%. It was found that the product capacity of 30 kg with the initial moisture at 250.10 % dry basis and the resulting final moisture at 63 % dry basis used time 22 hours. The leaf amount of Indian almond for using in the experiment was 44.96 kg, the total electric power consumption was 3.64 kWh and an average drying rate was 0.73 kgwater h(-1). (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of CEO of Sustainable Energy System, Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi (RMUTT).