Summary
In 1995, when the author had an opportunity to investigate the running cost of a rice drying processing storage facility equipped with 10 dry storage bins with a capacity of 335 tons a bin, called a "Country Elevator" in Japan, the energy required for reducing 1 kg of moisture was a must in calculation of the cost. This is technically termed specific energy consumption in English. To determine whether the figure obtained as a result of the investigation was correct or not as compared with that of the drying apparatus under the same ambient air temperature and drying rate, the figures cited in the past related literature were examined. The flgures of specific energy consumption are usable as an index for comparing the performance of various dryers before introduction and for evaluating the ability displayed afterwards. However, this information has never been sorted yet either in Japan or abroad. Therefore, the author attempted to arrange the figures of specific energy consumption which were discovered in the literature collected for every type of drying apparatus. These figures were: 5.51 MJ/kg-moist in column dryers with high temperature, 3.65 MJ/kg-moist in bin drying with low temperature, and 1.78 MJ/kg-moist in bin drying with dehumidifier, respectively.HomePageKeywords: specific energy consumption, specific energy requirement, energy efficiency, dryer performance evaluation