A STUDY ON CHILI DRYING PROCESS USING A PILOT-SCALE HOT AIR AND MICROWAVE DRYER

บทคัดย่อ

The hot air and microwave dryer can be used in harvested agricultural production drying to reduce drying times. Product quality is important in the drying process, which should study specifically agricultural production. Hence, the objective of this project was to study the characteristics of dried chilies, energy consumption, and production costs of chili drying using the pilots-scale hot air and microwave dryer. The design of the pilot-scale hot air and microwave dryer features microwave heat generation from six 2450 MHz frequency magnetrons  in a 210 L of capacity enclosure with a 5000 W air heater running at 180 ºC at maximum temperature in a closed loop-heating system. The temperature in the oven chamber is controlled automatically for both microwave and air heat generation. The study showed that the chili drying process using the hot air and microwaves dryer yielded shiny red skin, green calyx without skin cracking and the production costs of 35  baht kg^-1_{dry chilies} . As a result, the chili drying process using the hot air and microwave drying is the most suitable for further development on a commercial scale because of its clean technology, short drying times, and high quality of production.