Kajian pengering gabah tipe resirkulasi menggunakan Konveyor Pneumatik dan bahan bakar campuran minyak Jarak dengan minyak tanah

Abstract

Post harvest losses of rice in Indonesia was estimated to reach 20 % in which drying alone accounted for 2.3%. Most farmers in this country use the traditional direct sun drying, although cheap in cost it has the demerit of being dependent on weather conditions, susceptible to damage by rodent and easy being contaminated with dusts and foreign materials which can reduce the quality of products. Any delay in drying due to bad weather conditions will lead to excess in respiration and fungal growth, and sprouting due to re-wetting of products causing great losses in rice quality. The effect of global warming, due to accumulated green house gas (GHG) emissions in our atmosphere has created global climate change and uncertainty in weather conditions. Rainy days may occur during golden harvest making sun drying impossible and consequently drying should be delayed. The use of artificial dryer is facing another problem where fossil fuel as source of hot air generation is becoming scarce and high price. The aim of this study was to design a recirculation dryer of rough rice using pneumatic conveyor and blended fuel between kerosene and jatropha curcas oil to generate hot air for drying. This study comprises of five major components. First, is the study about the feasibility of using jatropha curcas oil as an energy source to produce drying air, second, experiments related to the influence of drying time and tempering durations on head rice yield (HRY) under non-flow static grain conditions, third, performance test of the proposed recirculation dryer, fourth computer simulation on recirculation dryer of rough rice using pneumatic conveyor and lastly, economic benefit of the proposed drying system.