Share

Heat pump assisted drying of flower bulbs.

Number: No 306

Author(s) : WAGENAAR S., FERREIRA C. I.

Summary

Within the agriculture sector, drying of food and flowering products is a required production step. Most companies use hot air dryers where the heat is obtained by combustion of natural gas. This paper proposes a heat pump assisted drying system as an alternative. Flower bulb carrying boxes containing just harvested products have been approximated as packed beds filled with spherical products. A heat pump is proposed which includes a cross flow heat exchanger and allows for recirculation of the drying air while maintaining its operating temperature and humidity at optimal conditions to guarantee the required drying rate while preventing damage of the product. Simulink is used to optimize the operating conditions of the system guaranteeing both the product quality and a low energy consumption. The heat pump has been sized to dry 10 flower bulb carrying boxes of about 800 kg each in 24 hours. The performance of the heat pump (170 kWh/dayrenewable electricity) is compared to the performance of conventional fossil fuel based drying systems (350 kWh/day fossil fuel). Understanding heat and mass transfer mechanisms during drying allows optimization of the heat pump design.

Available documents

Format PDF

Pages: 11 p.

Available

Free

Download

Details

  • Original title: Heat pump assisted drying of flower bulbs.
  • Record ID : 30030088
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Technology
  • Source: 13th IEA Heat Pump Conference 2021: Heat Pumps – Mission for the Green World. Conference proceedings [full papers]
  • Publication date: 2021/08/31

Links


See other articles from the proceedings (198)
See the conference proceedings

Indexing