Experimental studies on the effect of moisture content and temperature on moisture effective diffusivity and activation energy of bagasse

Determining bagasse's moisture effective diffusivity & activation energy requires examining the complex interactions between temperature and moisture content. Identifying these complexities is crucial in order to optimize bagasse applications in various scenarios. Traditional jaggery plants in rural India use a lot of their residual bagasse as fuel after extracting juice from sugarcane. Rural regions sun-dry residual wet bagasse having 45%–50% moisture. Moisture affects bagasse calorific value. Drying is crucial for bagasse heat content. The quantity of fuel fired in combustion chamber, currently reliant on open sun drying, is unpredictable. This study analyzes the role of fuel preparation, characteristics, and drying kinetics of bagasse of size 3.35 mm. Two types of samples, of which one is only a crushed one (wet sample-As Received Basis-ARB) and the other is a crushed and sundried sample (As Dried Basis-ADB). The study found effective diffusivity for crushed sample (ARB) and ADB at 50–100°C, with three models showing good predictions for drying bagasse at different temperatures, except for the Wagh-Singh model. The activation energy for bagasse of size 3.35 mm was determined as 23.19 kJ/mol for ARB and 13.13 kJ/mol for ADB. It was found that the fuel preparatory work and drying have a considerable effect on both the fuel's activation energy and the moisture content. The fuel preparation and drying could reduce the consumption of bagasse to the tune of 3.7 million metric tons per annum at the energy source and also reduce carbon dioxide emission of 6.8 million TCO2/annum in India from jaggery units.