Application of liquid desiccant drying system in agricultural products

Date

1993-08

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Abstract

The moisture content of many agricultural and forest products must be reduced to a safe level before their storage. Field-dried peanuts having 25% moisture content were dried by a liquid desiccant drying system which is more reliable, and efficient than field-drying and hot air drying. Wet hay was dried by both the conventional hot air and the liquid desiccant systems. Desiccant systems can produce low temperature drying at a controlled rate which is very important for certain delicate agricultural products. Desiccants can remove moisture from the air which, in turn, can be used for drying purposes. The weak desiccant can be regenerated by air under certain conditions so that the desiccant can be used continuously to remove moisture from au. The liquid desiccant system consists of climate simulation subsystem, closed loop air drying subsystem, and Cost Effective Liquid Desiccant (CELD) subsystem. The closed-loop drying subsystem used in this investigation provides a low temperature drying with a little increase in drying air temperature. Regeneration temperature, liquid desiccant concentration, and air flowrate in the drying subsystem were kept unchanged during the experiments, but different air conditions were used to regenerate the weak liquid desiccant. Experimental measurements of the system performance were carried out by utilizing a new cost effective desiccant mixture (CELD) which is composed of equal portions by weight of lithium chloride and calcium chloride. Experimental results demonstrate that drying peanuts and hay by the use of liquid desiccant system is promising.

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Keywords

Peanuts -- Drying, Hay -- Drying, Drying agents

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