Performance test of single heater chili dryer with liquefied petroleum gas fuel

Abstract

Chili farmers in rice fields without electricity need help to make a simple chili dryer to process chilies when the chili harvest is abundant. To overcome this, it is necessary to design a dryer with a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fueled heater. The main objective of this research is to make and test the performance of the chili dryer. The building of the dryer is made of 95% metal and the remaining 5% non-metallic material (wood) with a length of 60 cm, a width of 50 cm, and a height of 120 cm in which there are 6 chili tray slots. Furthermore, the entire process of testing the performance of the tool is carried out using only freshly picked chilies until dry chilies are obtained (20% initial weight). For the results of the first stage test (variation of drying temperature with an initial weight of chili set at 3 kg), it was found that the average drying time at each temperature of 70, 85 and 100oC was around 14.2; 9.3; and 6.5 hours.