Experimental Study of Paddy Grain Drying in Continuous Recirculation System Pneumatic Conveyor

¹ Departement of Mechanical Engineering, Semarang State Polytechnic, Postal Code 50239, Semarang, Indonesia
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Diponegoro University, 50239, Semarang, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: tprasetyo06@yahoo.com

Abstract

Nowadays, paddy drying using conventional method is irrelevant to used. The increasing need of grain each year is one of the main factor that pushes scientist to invent new methods of drying paddy grain. The old method is unusefull since it takes up space, needed the sun as the drying media which causes a long drying time. One of the alternative of drying paddy grain is by using mechanic dryer. By using this dryer type, the process of drying takes faster comparing to the old method and the distribution of grain is supplied continuously. The dryer which uses pneumatic conveyor can be one of the solution due to its less energy consumption, a better drying result, and high drying capacity. The variable used to identify drying performance is temperature and loading weight. From the experiment, it is resulted that the best temperature for drying paddy grain is 60°C with the weight loading of 150 gram.