Optimisation of the dehydration process for medicinal and spice plants regarding energy demand, profitability and product quality; Subproject 2: Analysis for the optimisation of a band dryer

Status
completed
Project begin
15.09.2007
Project end
14.09.2010
Keywords
Energiebedarf, Gewürzpflanzen, Heilpflanzen, Qualität, Trocknung
Bandtrockner
Description

Within this research project a conveyor band dryer for medicinal and spice plants in cooperation with an industrial partner will be optimised. Increasing energy prices und subsidised imports from foreign countries endanger the competitive capability of German producers. Therefore the task is to increase the capacity of the existing band dryer plant and reduce the specific energy consumption. Another goal is the improvement of the product quality, especially the use of the heat dissipated from a biogas plant for the dehydration process and the uniformity of the drying process will be analysed. The unequal distribution of air velocity and air temperature will be identified and eliminated. The thermodynamic system will be modelled and optimised by computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
Furthermore silage, which was previously compressed, will be dried utilising the heat dissipated from the biogas plant only. This is part of the BioLog project of the FNR.
The archived results from the pilot plant can be transferred to other similar band dryer plants

 

Budget: 250 000 Euro

Involved persons

Involved institutions

Sponsors

Publications in the course of the project