MODELLING OF HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER DURING PUFFING AND POPPING OF GRAINS BY FLUIDIZATION

K. Venkatesh Murthy, Amit K. Das and K.S.M.S. Raghavarao*

DepartmentofFoodEngineering,CentralFoodTechnologicalResearchInstitute,Mysore

Abstract: Abstract
Drying, roasting and popping of oil seeds, pulses, cereals and snack foods have been traditionally practised in India for enhancing the storage life, improving the organoleptic properties and ease of incorporation in preparation of breakfast and ready to eat foods. The current practice for this operation is to employ the electric dryers, sand roasters and electric conduction popping machines. The major drawbacks of these methods are high-energy consumption, scorching of the grains, contamination (by sand and ash) and problems in scale up. Since Fluidization is known to increase the heat and mass transfer, a popping machine (20-25 kg/hr) has been designed and fabricated, which involves high temperature short time process and can be operated on a continuous mode. Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) is used as the eco-friendly and economical fuel, fuel eliminating the use of sand. The process parameters such as air flow rate, temperature of hot air, initial moisture content, the residence time and bed height are optimized for various grains such as maize, jowar, paddy and rice in order to achieve high popping efficiency. The fluidization velocity of maize, jowar paddy and rice were found to be in the range of 4.18-5.78 m/s and the carry over velocity was found to be in the range of 2.15- 6.18 m/s. An attempt was made to model the heat and mass transfer during puffing and popping operations. The convective heat and mass transfer coefficients were estimated and found to be in the range of 103.84 to 186.81 W/m2 0C and 0.131 to 0.194 m/s respectively.

Fig g 1: Fluidized Puffing and Popping Machine: Orthogonal View

Fig g 2: Fluidized Puffing and Popping Machine

Background: Background :
The market for ready-to-eat foods is increasing and some popped and puffed items eg., puffed rice (Murmuri), puffed beaten rice (Avalaki puri), puffed paddy (de-husked) are popular in India, whereas popcorn is liked all around the world. Since, Popping of grains is a simultaneous heat and mass transfer process, fluidization can be used as an effective and efficient technique to modify the structure of the grain in order to enhance the organoleptic properties. Fluidization is a process by which solid particles are transformed in to fluid like state through contact with a gas or liquid and it has the advantage of intimate gas to particle contact, uniform particle exposure without mechanical agitation and easy to scale up.

Results & Discussion:

Table 1: Processing Conditions and Heat Transfer Coefficients
Feed Rate (kg/h)zz zzzz Feed Material(g) HotAir Temp. (oC) Popped Moisture Expansion BedHeight LPG Terminal Material Lost(g) Ratio (m) Consumed Escape Temp. (kg/h) Velocity(m/s) o ( C) Convective HeatTransfer Coefficient (W/m2 oC)

Materials & Methods: Methods:

1. Fluidized popping and puffing machine (Designed and developed at CFTRI, Mysore) 2. Popping/Puffing quality grains (Procured from local market)

MAIZE 18
FeedUnexpandedExpanded

Inlet

Outlet

15002001200 230160

60

100 JOWAR

10.42

0.020

1.5

5.01

103.84

9.8

1000100 750 235194

85

150 PADDY

12.50

0.O2O

1.25

5.57

154.86

3. Anemometer 4. Liquid Petroleum Gas

11.25 1000200650 296240 70.5

1.50 RICE

10.25

0.020

1.50

4.31

166.83

A li i Applications:
Since fluidization is a process of simultaneous heat and mass transfer and the mode of heat transfer was determined as forced convection, the above algorithms are also suitable for drying, roasting and other similar unit operations where transfer of heat and mass is dependent on the flow of fluid.
10.50 1000175625 250 190 72

145

6.37

0.020

1.25

4.18

186.81

Table 2: Mass Transfer Coefficients and Mass Transfer Factors

Grain Diameterofthegrain Dp (m)X103 6.31 3.5 2.5 2.0 Fluidization velocityof thegrain U(m/s) 5.78 5.57 4.31 4.18 MassTransfer Coefficients Kp (m/s) 0.131 0.157 0.194 0.153 MassTransferFactor Jm 11.83 15.06 28.57 19.36

Algorithms:
Heat Transfer:
The Basic equation used for the total heat transfer
Maize Jowar Paddy Rice

QT = hF Ap (TR-TP) .. (1)
For calculating Heat Transfer coefficients of the grains:

NNu= 2+0.60 NRe0.5 NPr0.33 . (2)

where NNu= hDp/K; NRe= DP V/; NPr= CP /K, h= Heat transfer coeffcient, Dp = Diameter of the grain and K= Thermal conductivity of the flue gas, = Density of the flue gas, V= Velocity of the flue gas, = Viscosity of the flue gas, CP = Specific heat of the flue gas

Dp = Diameter of the grain, U= Fluidization velocity of the grain

Forced convection was the mode of heat transfer during puffing and popping of grains. The convective heat transfer coefficients of the above mentioned grains were found to be in the range of 103.81 to 186.81 W/m2 0C. The mass transfer coefficients were calculated in the range of 0.131 to 0.194 m/s. The processing conditions were found to be optimum for obtaining desirable quality of the finished-

The fluid properties are calculated at average temperature from the following correlation.

Tf= (Troom+Tmedium)/2 (3)

For total theoretical heat absorbed:

QA=[w. [ CP. ( (Tp-Td)] )]/ t+[L. [ v] ]/ t

(4) ( )

product.

where w is the mass of the material, CP is average heat capacity, Td unpopped grain temperature, t is the popping time of the grains, L is the moisture loss during popping and v is the latent heat of water evaporation.

Future Plan:
The efficiency of the Fluidized Puffing and Popping machine can be enhanced by incorporating hot air recirculation facility to the existing device.

Mass Transfer:
For Mass transfer coefficients of the grains:

Kp//U = [/D]2/3 = (1-)0.5[UDp /v]-0.5 ..(5)

For Mass transfer Factor:

*Contact: Dr. K.S.M.S. Raghavarao, Head, Dept. of Food Engineering, CFTRI, Mysore-570 020
Tel. Phone No. +91 821- 2513910; E-mail: fed@cftri.res.in

Jm = Kp/

/U[/D]2/3

.. (6)

Acknowledgement:
The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. V. Prakash, Director CFTRI, Mysore for his encouragement and support to develop traditional food machinery. The authors are also thankful to Mr. S.G. Jayaprakashan, Mr. G. Bammigatti, Mr. I. Mahesh for their involvement during the fabrication of the machine. Thanks are extended to Ms Gitanjali K., Mr. Yeshwant H.R. and Ms Nagashree R. Rao for the preparation of the engineering drawing.

where Kp is the mass transfer coefficient, is the voidage, U is the fluidized velocity, Dp is the diameter of the particle , v is the kinematic viscosity, is the density of the flue gas and D is the diffusion coefficient.