Development of small scale electrohydrodynamic drying device for rough rice using dc plasma generator

Indonesia, as an agricultural country, is one of rice producer countries. In the rice processing chain, drying is the most important step to be done after harvesting. Electrohydrodynamic drying (EHD) is proposed as a drying method that is faster than sun exposure and having lower power consumption compared to commercial drying machine. In this research, a design of EHD device for drying rough rice is proposed. The proposed device is based on DC plasma which is generated by a flyback transformer-based circuit with output of 2.5 kV. The device was tested with multineedle-to-plate electrode configuration with 1 cm distance between both electrodes and rough rice sample was placed between the electrodes for an hour. The test result showed that the change of moisture content in the rough rice treated by the proposed device is five times higher than that of rough rice treated by sun exposure. Power consumption of EHD device is only 1.3 Watt for 50 grams per hour. Moreover, the temperature of the EHD device is quite low (~23°C) that can be considered as non-thermal device.