Regenerated desiccant devices for cooling stored grains

About 10% of all food grains that are harvested are ruined by insects and moulds during storage. One method of protecting stored grains is to cool them, as this reduces biological activities such as insect pest reproduction and mould growth. Cooling grains also reduces that rate at which moisture migrates from warm regions of a bulk of grain to cooler regions. There is resurgence in interest in physical methods of pest control, which is a result of the increasing restrictions on the use of chemically based control programs. Cooling can be achieved by forcing ambient air through grains, but the enthalpy of such air is often too high, particularly in tropical and subtropical climates, to achieve a sufficient degree of cooling. This thesis describes an augmentation of ambient aeration, which uses a desiccant device placed in a heat exchanger to produce the air that has a sufficiently low enthalpy to cool grains to safe storage temperatures.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Victoria University of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2003

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Li

• 0908 Food Sciences
• School of Engineering and Science
• 1001 Agricultural Biotechnology

Language dc:language

en