Effect of hot air temperature on high moist paddy drying in a conical spouted bed

Abstract

Parboiled paddy of two varieties namely Samba and Nadu were dried in a lab scale spouted bed dryer. Spouting behaviour, drying kinetics and heat and mass transfer characteristics of parboiled paddy were investigated. The minimum spouting velocity was determined for parboiled paddy of two varieties for three different bed heights. Drying experiments were carried out to analyse the effect of drying temperature and air velocity on drying kinetics, moisture diffusivity and heat transfer coefficient. Results revealed that spouted bed drying operation with elevated temperatures show higher drying rates. The spouted bed dryer spouting at different air velocities had almost similar drying rates at stable spouting state for a selected drying temperature and bed height.