UTILIZATION OF ENGINE-WASTE HEAT FOR GRAIN DRYING IN RURAL AREAS

An attempt was made to measure the availability of waste heat, released from the cooling system of a small engine, which can be utilized for grain drying. An engine powered flat-bed rough rice dryer was constructed and the performance of the dryer with available engine-waste heat was analyzed for 10 , 20, 30 and 40 cm rough rice bulk depths with a constant dryer base area of 0.81$m^2$/min. The waste heat was sufficient to increase the drying air temperature 7 to 12$^{\circ}C$ at an air flow rate of 8.8 to 5.7㎥/min, while the average ambient temperature and relative humidity were 24$^{\circ}C$ and 70%. The minimum energy requirement was 3.26 MJ/kg of water removed in drying a 40 cm deep grain bed in 14h. A forty to fifty centimeter deep grained seems to be optimum in order to avoid over-drying in the top layers. On the basis of minimum energy requirement (3.26 MJ/kg ) , an estimation was made that the waste heat harvest from an engine of a power range of 1 to 10.5PS can dry about 0.1 to 1 metric on of rough rice from 23% to 15% m.c. (w.b) in 12 h at an average ambient temperature and relative humidity of $25^{\circ}C$ and 80%, respectively. The engine-waste heated grain dryer can be used in the rural areas of non industrialized countries where electricity is not available.