relation: https://khub.utp.edu.my/scholars/1823/
title: Drying of oil palm frond via swirling fluidization technique
creator: Mohideen, M.F.
creator: Faiz, M.
creator: Salleh, H.
creator: Zakaria, H.
creator: Raghavan, V.R.
description: Oil palm frond (OPF) is one of the largest available resources of biomass from oil palm plantations. Previous research works reported the high potentials of using the OPF as the main component for cattle feed. The production of cattle feed however, depends strongly on the drying efficiency of freshly pruned OPF. The current study proposes the swirling fluidization technique as a method for drying the OPF. A laboratory scale swirling fluidized bed dryer (SFBD) was constructed to carry out investigation on hydrodynamics and drying characteristics of chopped OPF in hot air stream at temperatures of 45°C and 60°C. OPF which consists of leaves (57 moisture content - wet basis) and stem (70 moisture content - wet basis) are dried separately in the SFBD. The average time taken to reduce moisture to 15 (as per required in cattle feed production) is about 60 minutes for leaves and 90 minutes for stems. It was found that the hydrodynamics and drying kinetics of both leaves and stems differ greatly. The leaves dry faster with large amount of moisture loss in early stages of drying before slowing down, in contrast with stems. This leads to a conclusion that the leaves are kinetic controlled while the stems are diffusion controlled and thus justifies the drying to be conducted separately. In conclusion, drying of OPF using swirling fluidized bed is effective for both continuous and batch drying. The ability to fluidize the highly irregular shapes of OPF at relatively low energy consumption is another strong advantage to use the swirling fluidization technique in comparison with other methods of fluidized bed drying as reported in the literature.
date: 2011
type: Conference or Workshop Item
type: PeerReviewed
identifier:   Mohideen, M.F. and Faiz, M. and Salleh, H. and Zakaria, H. and Raghavan, V.R.  (2011) Drying of oil palm frond via swirling fluidization technique.  In: UNSPECIFIED.     
relation: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-80755152903&partnerID=40&md5=54b28955cd0bde19cf8831457d4efe46