Mass and Energy Balance Analysis of Pneumatic Dryers for Cassava and Development of Optimization Models to Increase Competitiveness in Nigeria

The use of locally fabricated flash drying system is a major challenge for the production of High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF). Thus, this study focuses on analysis of pneumatic dryers for cassava processing and its significance relates to its promise to further our understanding of the performance of the existing design models of pneumatic dryers and to identify new way to improve drying performance of the dryers. Four different design models of pneumatic dryer for HQCF drying were evaluated at three cassava processing centers. The dryers were subsequently modified based on minimum air. The dryer models were assessed based on energy efficiency, specific heat consumption and thermal efficiency. The highest energy efficiency was recorded for the positive, single cyclone system, dryer model 2 (+1C) which increased from 63.27 to 78.55% while its specific heat consumption was reduced from 3.79 to 3.06 MJ/kg after modification. Furthermore, the modification reduces the fuel consumption in all the dryer models by 22%, 14%, 14% and 16% respectively. Thus, it is established that the positive, single cyclone system had the better drying performance of all the dryer models evaluated.