Affiliation:
1. Department of Agricultural Machinery Mechanics, Azadshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Azadshahr, Iran
2. Centre for Sustainable Energy use in Food Chains, Brunel University London
Abstract
The energy performance and carbon footprint associated with the fluidized bed drying of petals of Echium amoenum Fisch. and C.A. Mey are experimentally evaluated at three temperatures (40,50,60°C) and air velocities (0.50,0.75,1.00m/s). The maximum and minimum specific energy consumption are observed to occur at 40°C and 1ms-1 (79.18MJ/kg) and 60°C and 0.5m/s (22.60MJ/kg), respectively. The greenhouse gas emission is in the range, 0.10-8.40kgCO2eq, varying with drying conditions in the same manner as energy consumption, with natural gas-fired systems performing better than oil-fired systems. High-temperature, low-air velocity drying is thus, favourable for energy-efficient and sustainable fluidized bed drying of the petals.Keywords: fluidized bed dryer; greenhouse gas; specific energy consumption; Iran.
Publisher
Universitat Politècnica València