A Novel Energy Efficient Adsorption Drying with Zeolite For Food Quality Product: A Case Study in Paddy and Corn Drying

Abstract

Nowadays, the importance of powdered food products as for example soups, sauces, dried yeasts, and herbal medicine is increasing for consumer convenience. Mostly, these products have been produced with drying process either, direct sunlight, conventional, or modern dryer. The direct sunlight dryer depends on the daily weather extremely both in the product drought and process continuity. Meanwhile,conventional dryer results high energy consumption as well as low product quality due to the introduction of hot air. In addition, modern dryer process can improve the product quality, but the energy efficiency was fair. This paper discusses the design and application of adsorption dryer with zeolite for food. Here, the air as drying medium was dehumidified by zeolite to enhance the driving force. Thus, the drying can be well conducted in low or medium temperature. The dryer was designed in single and multi stage system. Result showed that energy efficiency of single stage dryer was 70 - 72% (10% higher than that of conventional dryer). While in multi stage, the energy efficiency can reach 80% (for two stage) and 90% (for three stage). In corn and paddy drying, the dryer with zeolite can speed up drying time and retain the nutrition and physical quality.