A Mulberry Green Tea Drying using Producer Gas

Abstract

The mulberry green tea, which constitutes of both a plenty of ingredients and various types
of vitamin are now receiving more attention and promotion for a healthy purpose as well as being
the most popular product in today market. The mulberry green tea production process mostly
consumes a lot of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) that could be estimated more than 80% of total
energy consumption. Consequently, the purpose of this research is to utilize producer gas from
biomass energy conversion technology namely, gasification, for instead of LPG in mulberry green
tea production process.
Experimental results showed that a mulberry green tea drying using producer gas from the
initial moisture content of 75.02 %wb (271.06 %db) down to the final moisture content of 3.87 %wb
(4.03 %db) spent drying time about 60 minutes at drying air temperature of 100??C. Furthermore, the
specific energy consumption of a mulberry green tea drying using producer gas and LPG was about
5.56 and 10.61 MJ/kg H2Oevap whereas the drying cost was about 1.25 and 0.99 Baht/kg,
respectively. An economical analysis indicated that the payback period of a mulberry green tea
drying using a gasification system was about 2.43 years or 2 years 5 months 4 days.

Keywords: mulberry green tea / producer gas / specific energy consumption / initial moisture ontent / final moisture content / payback period