DRYING OF HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT PADDY IN A PILOT SCALE TRIANGULAR SPOUTED BED DRYER

Abstract

Abstract From the successful drying of paddy in a lab-scale triangular spouted bed (TSB), a pilot scale unit with a capacity of 500kg/batch was constructed and used to dry paddy of high moisture contents. The drying tests showed that air temperatures of up to 160°C in the first stage, followed by a lower temperature of 80–100°C in the second stage, can be used to dry paddy from more than 25% down to around 15% (w.b.) without significantly changing grain quality in terms of head rice recovery. Moisture distribution in the pilot-scale TSB was observed to be satisfactorily uniform. Keywords: Triangular spouted bedPaddy drying ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors of this paper would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) that made this project possible. Due acknowledgement also belongs to T. Thong Pham, Vinh Truong, V. Doc Nguyen, and V. Xuan Nguyen who helped to carry out the experiments at the University of Agriculture and Forestry, HoChiMinh City, Vietnam. Notes (*) In this paper all moisture contents are on wet basis.