A Novel Design of Crop Dryer for Use in Developing Countries

The dryer is required for drying of grain as well as drying of the processed products in small catchment agro processing centers in the developing world. However, due to varied material characteristics of grain and secondary processed product, two entirely different types of dryers are required. The grain is dried in a recirculatory dryer, whereas processed product is dried in a tray dryer, where it is frequently mixed and trays are also intermittently changed. To avoid the need for two dryers, a novel design of a low-cost hot air dryer was developed where just by changing the trays the dryer can be converted from an LSU grain dryer to a tray-type product dryer. The dryer was tested for drying soybean grain as well as processed soy products like blanched soybean dal and soyflakes. The capacity of the dryer was 100 kg/batch in a tray dryer with each tray accommodating 10 kg of wet material. In case of LSU mode, the capacity of the dryer was 250 kg of grain per batch. The drying time required was 5 h for 250 kg of wet soybean from 24 to 10% moisture content, whereas in a tray dryer 100 kg blanched soybean dal was dried from 60 to 10% in 5 h and 100 kg of soyflakes from 25% moisture content to 10% moisture in 1.75 h. The cost of the dryer is estimated at US$580.00 and it can be fabricated in a moderately equipped workshop in developing countries.