RESEARCH ON THE DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL TESTING OF A CINNAMON BARK DRYING DEVICE BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE OF REVERSE DRYING OF THE DRYING AGENT

Abstract

In Vietnam today, cinnamon bark after being harvested from the tree (peeled from the tree) will be dried by naturally drying under the sun. In addition to the natural drying method, no processing corporation has been seen using a dryer. When drying under the sun, it will depend a lot on the weather, moreover, it is easily covered with dust and affected by passing animals, etc. Therefore, the application of forced drying technology using a cinnamon bark dryer is necessary and more proactive in production. The dryer can dry cinnamon bark after being harvested from the growing place and brought to the processing factory with a moisture content of w1 (50.29-53.31%) and dried down to a moisture content of w2 (14.23-15.03%) to prevent the growth of fungi, while the temperature of the drying agent is selected from 40-50oC to maintain the content and quality of aetheric oil. With the drying agent temperature changed from 40-50oC under the condition of maintaining the drying agent velocity v = 0.55m/s, we determined the moisture reduction time for cinnamon bark from 12-15 hours with the environmental temperature of 28oC and the relative humidity of the environment about 63%.