EXERGY AND ENERGY ANALYSES OF CORN DRYING PROCESS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY IN A LABORATORY-SCALE DRYER

Abstract

Drying is an energy-intense process. In the drying process, the operating conditions of the dryers can be optimized by analyzing the available and unavailable parts of energy. The study deals with the energy and exergy analyses of the drying process of corn dryer. Experiments are conducted in a laboratory-scale dryer controlled by a real-time grain moisture meter at a gas temperature of 103 degrees C, at two different gas velocities 2.8 m.s(-1) and 3.5 m.s(-1). By applying the first and second laws of thermodynamics, energy and exergy analyses are carried out to reveal the effect of gas velocity. The energy utilization (EU), energy utilization ratio (EUR), specific energy consumption (SEC), exergy efficiency values are calculated and presented in comparison with the available results. The results show that energy utilization ratios increase with the gas velocity and the maximum exergy efficiency is observed at a high velocity.