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75152

UTILIZATION OF SOLAR ENERGY FOR DRYING SUGAR BEET TOPS

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Last updated: 22 Jan 2023

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Abstract

A study was carried out to test and evaluate a green house type solar dryer for drying sugar beet tops under three different levels of air velocity (0.4, 0.8, and 1.2 m/sec), three different lengths of beet tops (3, 6, 9 cm) and two different treating conditions (with crushing, and without crushing). The changes in sugar beet tops moisture content was monitored versus the drying time until reaching the proper moisture content of about (12-13 % w.b.). Solar radiation flux incident, bulk temperature of tops, air temperature and relative humidity, overall thermal efficiency of the dryer and the protein content of the dried tops were determined. The results showed that, the hourly average available solar radiations ranged from 598.26 to 663.85 W/m2 during the experimental work. Also, the solar collector of the dryer could increase the air temperature by about 12.6, 12.31 and 12.81oC and decrease the air relative humidity by about 26.06, 23.67 and 20.97 % for air velocity of 0.4, 0.8, and 1.2 m/sec respectively. The reduction rate in moisture content of sugar beet tops was varied and increased with the increase of drying air velocity, decrease of chopping length and for the crushed samples in comparison with the not crushed samples. Also, the constant drying rate period was not detected for all studied levels of drying air velocity, while all the drying process occurred during the falling rate-drying period. The result also show that the use of the green-house type solar dryer with chopping and crushing of the green tops could decrease the drying time of sugar beet tops by about 47 to 59 h in comparison with the traditional drying method which has been taken about 78 hours. The thermal efficiency of the dryer ranged from 34.12 to 22.96 % and the protein content of the dried tops ranged from 12.57 to 14.52 % on DM basis.

DOI

10.21608/jssae.2010.75152

Authors

First Name

M.

Last Name

Abu-Habaga

MiddleName

E.

Affiliation

Agric. Eng. Dept., Fac. Agric., Mansoura Univ.

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Orcid

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First Name

M.

Last Name

El-Kholy

MiddleName

M.

Affiliation

Agric. Eng. Res. Inst., A. R. C, Giza, P.O. 256, Egypt

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

R.

Last Name

Emara

MiddleName

Z.

Affiliation

Agric. Eng. Res. Inst., A. R. C, Giza, P.O. 256, Egypt

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Volume

1

Article Issue

7

Related Issue

11325

Issue Date

2010-07-01

Receive Date

2010-07-05

Publish Date

2010-07-01

Page Start

681

Page End

697

Print ISSN

2090-3685

Online ISSN

2090-3766

Link

https://jssae.journals.ekb.eg/article_75152.html

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https://jssae.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=75152

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4

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Original Article

Type Code

889

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering

Publication Link

https://jssae.journals.ekb.eg/

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023