ENERGY-EFFICIENT LOW-TEMPERATURE UNIT OF CONDENSATION TYPE FOR DRYING SEED GRAIN

There is a problem with high energy costs for the process, which is associated with low-temperature drying of seed materials and the imperfection of existing drying equipment. The analysis of drying methods revealed, that the main method of drying is convective, which is too energy-consuming. Grain drying occurs at high temperatures (up to 80–100 °C). And for seed grain, the drying temperature should not exceed 50 °C to maintain high germination of the material. Heat pump dryers provide this temperature with low energy consumption. Increasing the energy efficiency of the process is achieved by increasing the intensity of drying and reducing the moisture content of the heat carrier during seed drying. Based on the presented tasks for improving the operation of the dryer, an installation with an installed heat generator on a heat pump was developed, which allows using the condensation method of drying. The presented research solves the actual task of saving energy and quality properties of the material using the example of drying rapeseed for agricultural enterprises. As a result of the research, when comparing a drying plant with a heat pump and a drying plant with electric heating by electric heaters, the quality of rapeseed improved by 3 %, the specific heat consumption decreased by 3.3 times, the intensity of the process increased by 13 %, the efficiency of the drying plant with heat pump increased to 58.4 %. Bibl. 20, Fig. 7, Tab. 2.