Heat pump assisted drying of flower bulbs

Conference paper (2021)

Authors

S. Wagenaar Student, Wagenaar Koeltechniek

C.A. Infante Ferreira Engineering Thermodynamics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Research Group

Engineering Thermodynamics (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) (TU Delft)

Heat pump Drying of horticulture products Moisture removal Experimental drying rates

To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:bbe857d3-94fa-435c-a268-0c53fbe9db40

More Info

expand_more

Published Date

2021

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Department

Process and Energy

Research Group

Engineering Thermodynamics

Abstract

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/day renewable 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.

Files

HPC2021_306.pdf

(.pdf | 1.46 Mb)