Technology improvement of hot air generating systems in tea industry

Abstract

The present available thermal energy consuming patterns in tea industry were studied by selecting ten number of tea factories, covering three zonal areas in the country in order to carry out technology improvement of hot air generating systems for tea drying. A continues fuel wood charging system, which was designed and fabricated by National Engineering Research & Development Centre (NERDC). Was introduced instead of manual fuel wood charging system at an up country tea factory. This system consists of a conveyer to charge fuel wood to the hopper, a small hopper to store fuel wood at a certain period for combustion, a screw feeder to feed fuel wood to the combustion chamber and a control circuit to control the fuel wood charging rale by sensing the dryer inlet temperature. The successful results leveled that the potential fuel wood saving percentage is around 40 %./ A 450 kW, -capacity, down draft, firewood gasified was designed and fabricated by the NERDC and this was introduced to supply hot air to the length of 4 feet & the capacity of 150 kg Endless Chain Pockets (ECP) dryer at the Tea Research Institute (Try. Rathnpura. The endurance test was earned out continuously foi a period of three months and analyzed data showed an average fuel wood saving of the gasified system is around 50 % compared to the existing system./ The total fuel wood saving in tea industry was estimated by considering three different systems with respect to the present technology used. The foreign exchange saving was assessed by considering all fuel oil air heaters in the country. Also the economic analysis of each system was carried out in order to find out financial benefits. Except of those technical economical factors, few values added - non quantified environmental benefits such as reduction of deforestation. CO & Coy emissions, were associated with this study. Finally merits and dements among each of the traditional and improved systems were considered.