ANÁLISIS ENERGÉTICO‐EXERGÉTICO DEL SECADO CONVECTIVO DE RESIDUOS DEL TOMATE INDUSTRIAL.

Abstract

This work presents the results of energy-exergy analysis of convective drying of industrial tomato by-products, peels and seeds. The experiments were carried out in the range of drying air temperature 25-45ºC. The drying air flow was maintained between 1 and 1.3 m/s. Under these conditions, drying times ranged between 504 and 192 minutes, to reduce the moisture content of 63% to 5%, by weight and wet basis. Using the first law of thermodynamics, the energy analysis of the drying process and the energy utilization ratio was calculated, ranging between 2.73-18.12%. By using the second law of thermodynamics, the exergy analysis was developed to determine its behavior with different operating variables. Also, exergy losses suffered during the drying process were calculated, and it was found to be higher with the increased of the drying temperature, becoming less significant increases in air velocity. The greatest losses were recorded for the temperature of 45 ºC, reaching a value of 0.038 kJ / s. The exergy efficiency of the drying chamber decreases with increasing temperature. The best efficiency is achieved for a temperature of 25 ºC and 1 m/s air velocity. Keywords: Energy-exergy analysis; Convective drying; Tomato by-products; Moisture Content.