Variação de diferentes tempos de revolvimento em secador de camada fixa para café

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the energetic efficiency in coffee drying (Coffee arabica L.) with different combinations of revolving time in a fixed-bed coffee dryer. The experiment was conducted in July 2004 in Jesuítas – Paraná state/Brazil. The dryer featured a mechanic system with rotating blades to revolve of the product at different intervals. The drying air temperature was 75ºC ± 5ºC. The ventilation and drying was kept constant during the tests. It was observed that the average energy efficiency was 12.3 MJ kg-1 and there was no significant difference between the treatments. For the adopted dryer model, the revolving system is recommended with three-hour intervals and continuous drying.