Exploratory study of oil palm frond chips drying process

The multi-used fiber has turned oil palm fronds as the raw material which has a high potential as commercial products and renewable energy at present and future time. Since this valuable raw material is easily found scattering abundantly throughout the whole year in Malaysia, it needs to be preserved through a drying process. Therefore, more drying methods need to be experimented so that more choices are available. This study has chosen fluidized bed dryer due to its advantages. Since there are many factors which affect the drying process in this dryer, this study was aimed to investigate one of the effects, which is the hot air temperature. Different hot air temperatures of 60, 70 and 90°C were selected in identifying their effects on the drying process of oil palm fronds chips in the chosen dryer. 200 g of OPF chips at 10 cm bed height were put in the fluidized bed column. Later, hot air, at a fixed velocity of 1.45 m/s (1.2umf), was allowed to flow continuously for 60 min in the column. The findings show that the higher the hot air temperature, the shorter the drying time. Thus, this resulted in a higher drying rate.