Drying various vegetables and fruits in the drying equipment, instead of drying or drying using traditional fuel, can effectively use low-temperature geothermal water.
A "geothermal" tomato dehydration plant has produced high quality "sun-dried" tomatoes since 2001 in the new Erasmio, northern Greece. The unit USES low-cost geothermal water to heat to 56-58 ° C in a specially designed tunnel-type drying facility, which is pumped into the atmosphere. The scope of this work is to apply low-enthalpy geothermal energy to the above mentioned tomato drying process.
The modeling process is divided into two phases: the first phase focuses on the shape of a single tomato slice, while the second phase focuses on the shape of the air drying equipment drying the tomatoes on a tray moving in batches in the tunnel. The effects of air velocity, air temperature, and tomato tray loading on the drying process were investigated. The influence of flow configuration, i.e. downstream or counter-current operation, on the drying characteristics is discussed. The model can be used for continuous drying equipment during the drying process, existing designs and optimizations, and can be easily extended and modified to handle with other agricultural products and tunnel designs.
On 2018-08-08 11:45:46
