A Study on Heat Distribution in Biomass Fired Kiln and Prediction of the Drying Kinetics of Catfish (Clarias gariepinus)

الملخص

An investigation was done on the biomass fire kiln. Three energy sources were used to power the kiln, and data were recorded. The kiln also has three compartments, namely, deck 1, deck 2, and deck 3. Experimental data of the kiln-dried catfish were fitted into Lewis, Henderson, and Page models. The R2 values for the Lewis, Henderson, and Page models are 0.831, 0.8310, and 0.247. Meanwhile, the X2–chi-square values for the three models are 0.0037, 0.0037, and 0.0210, respectively. Thus, Lewis and Henderson are the best models for predicting the drying kinetics of catfish. Catfish, like most other biomaterials, fall under the falling rate period. The hypothesis that the three energy sources affect the drying kiln was validated with X2-chi-square. The hypothesis was accepted because the calculated value (0.093071) was far less than the table value (9.49), which is a basis for the justification. We also discovered that the drying time for gas is shorter than that for other energy sources, followed by charcoal and electricity. The experimental data was plotted against the predicted R2 of 0.854, and the points clustered around the slope showed a good prediction.