EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON MOISTURE SORPTION ISOTHERMS AND MONOLAYER MOISTURE CONTENT OF BERMUDA GRASS (CYNODON DACTYLON)
Keywords:
equilibrium relative humidity, drying, Bermuda grass, artificial neural networksAbstract
Bermuda grass is widely grown in Saudi Arabia as a turf grass. It is highly tolerant to drought and hot weather. It can be
compressed to form pellets, which can be used as livestock, or energy pellets similar to charcoals. Drying is required to process
the grass into a safe storage condition. Moisture sorption isotherms are required to design and optimize the drying process
of the grass. Therefore, moisture sorption isotherms were studied using gravimetric methods at temperatures ranging from
20 to 40oC. Both conventional analytical moisture sorption isotherms (MSI) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) were used
to model the relationship between equilibrium moisture content (EMC) and equilibrium relative humidity (ERH). The results
showed that Modified Halsey equation was the best representative of MSIs. However, ANNs were also found to outperform
MSI analytical models with R2 = 0.991 and a root mean square error (RMSE ) = 1.17. Monolayer moisture content was also
found to decrease linearly with EMC from 0.074 to 0.047 (decimal w.b.) over the temperature range investigated.
References
Arabhosseini, A., W. Huisman and J. Muller, 2010. Modeling of the equilibrium moisture content (EMC) of Miscanthus (Miscanthus × giganteus). Biomass Bioenerg, 34: 411-416.
Arslan, N. and H. Togrul, 2005. Moisture sorption isotherms for crushed chillies. Biosyst Eng., 90(1): 47-61.
ASAE, 2003. Standards. S358.2: Moisture measurement - forages. St. Joseph, Mich.: ASAE.
ASAE, 1996. ASAE D245.5. Moisture relationship of plant-based agricultural products. ASAE Standards, 3rd ed., American Society of Agricultural Engineers, St. Joseph, MI, USA.
Chakraverty, A., 1981. Post harvest technology of cereals, pulses and oil seeds. 3rd ed. Calcutta: Oxford & IBH Publishing Company Pvt. Ltd.
Çağlar, B., S. Satar and T. Elbeaino, 2013. Detection and molecular characterization of bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) white leaf phytoplasma from Turkey. Int. J. Agric. Biol., 15: 90-94.
Hashemi, J. and N. Shimizu, 2008. Investigation of fissure formation during the drying and post-drying of japonica aromatic rice. Int. J. Agric. Biol., 10: 179-184.
Hossain, M., B. Bala and M. Mondol, 2001. Adsorption isotherms and heat of adsorption of pineapple. J. Food Eng., 48: 103-107.
Igathinathane, C., A. Womac, L. Pordesimo and S. Sokhansanj, 2008. Mold appearance and modeling on selected corn stover components during moisture sorption. Bioresource Technol., 99: 6365-6371.
Jirjis, R., 1995. Storage and drying of wood fuels. Biomass Bioenerg., 9: 181-190.
Karunanithy, C., K. Muthukumarappan and A. Donepudi, 2013. Moisture sorption characteristics of switch grass and prairie cord grass. Fuel, 103: 171-178.
Menkov, N., H. Paskalev, D. Galyazkov and M. Kerezieva-Rakova, 1999. Applying the linear equation of correlation of Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) monolayer moisture content with temperature. Nahrung, 43(2): 118-121.
Moreno, R., G. Antolín, A. Reyes and P. Alvarez, 2004. Drying characteristics of forest biomass particles of Pinus radiata. Biosystems Eng., 88(1): 105-115.
Nilsson, D., B. Svennerstedt and C. Wretfors, 2005. Adsorption equilibrium moisture contents of flax straw, hemp stalks and reed canary grass. Biosystems Eng., 91(1): 35-43.
Singh, R., 2004. Equilibrium moisture content of biomass briquettes. Biomass Bioenerg., 26(3): 251-253.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2014 Bulgarian Journal of Agricultural Science
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
