Development of an Economical Automatic Temperature and Time Control Multipurpose Dryer | Chapter 06 | Current Research in Science and Technology Vol. 2
Many dryers exist in the open markets
for drying several agricultural crops in Africa. Most of them have their
limitations and complexities. The significant ones are expensive and cannot be
afford by the peasant farmers. Those developed locally are inefficient
especially where temperature control is required. There is need to develop
appropriate systems that will ensure effective temperature control without
compromising the quality parameters of products. Time control is also a
challenge due to unstable power supply which result to calculation of drying
time not the same as working hours of the dryer for existing dryers. A digital
microprocessor base temperature control and time control dryer has been
developed and fabricated for drying any type of biomaterial at varying
temperature range using locally available materials. The fabricated temperature
and time control multipurpose dryer was test to ascertain its performance, the
preset temperature control the ON/OFF the heating helix in the drying chamber
within room temperature to 110°C and the temperature control was compared with
three different types of digital temperature meters. The time control was also
tested to clock only when the dryer is powered. Some selected biomaterial
(Cassava, maize, cocoyam) with moisture content between 13 - 26% MCwb
was dried for an average time of about 6-8 hours at 60°c temperature and the
air velocity of the drying process was 0.4-0.75 m/s2.
Author(s) Details
Engr. P. A. Obasa (OND,
HND, PGD, MENG, NIM, NIAE, IAENG, COREN Regd.)
Department Agricultural and Bioresources
Engineering, Federal University of Technology Minna, Nigeria.
Prof. O. C. Ademosun (B.Sc.
(Hons); M.Sc., Ph.D., FNIAE, FNSE, COREN Regd.)
Department Agricultural and
Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria.
View Volume: https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/crst/v2
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