Design, Fabrication and Evaluation of Biomass Furnace System For Greenhouse-Type Solar Dryer - Santos, Nicol M. (Magalang, Pampanga : Pampanga State Agricultural University, 2020)
This study was conducted at PSAU Magalang, Pampanga from January 2020 to March 2020 to design, fabricate and evaluate the performance of biomass furnace system for greenhouse-type dryer. The drying capacity, moisture reduction rate, heat utilization and drying efficiency, operation cost, and cost of materials were determined. Statistical analysis was done using Complete Randomized Design (CRD) and Least Significant Difference (LSD) by multiple comparisons to determine the significant difference among treatments in the evaluation of the machine. The grand mean drying capacity of the machine was 0.75 kg/hr with treatment 2 as the highest capacity and a mean of 0.85 kg/hr. Moreover, the grand mean moisture reduction of the machine was 0.227 kg/hr with the highest reduction at treatment 2 with a mean of 0.275 kg/hr. The grand mean heat utilization was 127.57 KJ/kg with the highest utilization at treatment 1 with a mean of 153.90 KJ/kg. The grand mean drying efficiency of the machine was 45.55% with the highest efficiency at treatment 1 with a mean of 54.46%. The total cost of producing the machine is Php 71,674.4 with a net income of Php54,339.42/year obtained in a payback of 1.32 years or 482 days. It is best to use treatment 1 to have a highly significant in terms of drying efficiency.