Drying with rice hull-fed furnace eliminates kerosene cost

By Sosimo Ma. Pablico

Farmers, cooperatives and rice millers using recirculating batch dryer for grain drying may now replace the kerosene burner with a rice hull-fed furnace as source of heat and be spared from the spiraling cost of non-renewable petroleum-based fuel.

Agricultural engineers of the Bureau of Postharvest Research and Extension (BPRE) headed by Executive Director Ricardo L. Cachuela found that a drying cost of at least PhP2,474 could be saved by using a rice hull-fed furnace as source of heat for a single batch recirculating dryer.

The amount of savings increases to an average of PhP5,774 if the rice hull-fed furnace is used as a source of heat for two batch recirculating dryers operating at the same time.

The BPRE researchers, led by Engr. Edgar Flores, reported that the furnace operates with a fully automatic feeding mechanism that is synchronized with ash removal, thereby facilitating continuous burning of the rice hull.  Its operation requires very minimal human attention and reduces health risks posed to operators.

This furnace has a temperature controller that regulates and maintains uniform drying air temperature throughout the drying operation.  Likewise, it has a heat exchanger that delivers clean air to the rice grains that are being dried. 

A fly ash scrubber also controls the emission of fly ash at a level that is way below the limit set by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, thereby ensuring compliance to existing environmental laws.   

Flores said the rice hull-fed furnace was tested on the dryers of three cooperators in Solano, Vizcaya, Sorsogon City, and Trento, Agusan del Sur.  He said that the cost of kerosene-based drying was an average PhP46.41 per bag.

When the kerosene burner of a single recirculating batch dryer was replaced by a rice hull-fed furnace, the cost of drying was an average PhP25.79 per bag, resulting in a savings of PhP20.62 per bag.  Since the capacity of one dryer is 120 bags of rice grains, the savings per batch of drying is PhP2,474. 

When drying is done twice a day, the savings would be PhP4,948.  This would run to PhP29,688 in six days or PhP118,752 in one month.

The savings would be much higher if the rice hull-fed furnace is used for two recirculating batch dryers operating at the same time.  The cost of drying goes down to an average PhP22.35 per bag, resulting in a savings of PhP5,774.40.    

When two batches of drying are done in a day, the savings would be PhP11,548.80 in one day, PhP69,292.80 in six days, or PhP277,171.20 in a month.

Flores said the replacement of kerosene burners with the BPRE rice hull-fed furnace will substantially make mechanical grain drying a more attractive alternative to sun drying in minimizing the deterioration of harvested grains during prolonged rainy periods.

In Solano, Nueva Vizcaya, officers of the Alay Kapwa Multi-Purpose Cooperative said they could now buy more palay from members and non-members even during the wet season because their drying operation is no longer hampered by the spiraling cost of kerosene.

On the other hand, the managers of two cooperatives in Sorsogon City and Trento, Agusan del Sur reported that because of lower drying cost with the presence of a rice hull-fed furnace, more farmers availed of the cooperative’s custom drying services.  Besides solving their problem of rice hull disposal, the income of the cooperative also increased.

Flores said that the commercial manufacture of the rice hull-fed furnace could be customized to suit the requirements of end-users.

He added that in the commercial manufacture of this gadget, accredited manufacturers will be encouraged to improve and enhance its quality and durability to ensure aesthetic value and longer economic life without necessarily infringing on existing intellectual property rights.

In a related development, another group of BPRE researchers found that the rice hull-fed furnace can also replace the kerosene burner of cabinet dryers.  When it was used for drying sliced mango, the drying cost was substantially reduced from PhP25.98 per kilo PhP19.29 per kilo, resulting in a savings of PhP6.69.  Since a cabinet dryer can accommodate 230 kg of sliced mango, the savings would be PhP1,538 per batch of drying in 12 hours.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/harvest-time/)

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