Heat Pump Fluidized Bed Drying of Agricultural Materials

Heat pump-assisted drying is an energy-efficient process because the heat is recoverable. In this paper, a heat pump in combination with fluidized bed dryer was designed and constructed and the performance of the heat pump fluidized bed dryer was studied. Carrots cubes were dried by an experimental HPD. The moisture extraction rates (MER) and the specific moisture extraction rates (SMER) of carrots drying decreased rapidly with time. The maximum average MER, SMERhp and SMERws was 3.63 kg/h, 1.25 kg/kWh and 0.715 kg/kWh, respectively. The energy consumption of compressor is approximate 50% of the total energy input.