Investigation of Energy Parameters, Environment and Social Costs for Drying Process (Case Study: Apple Slices)

Now day, global warming is too considerable due to consumption of fossil fuels. Use of fossil fuels in power plants for electricity generates has the largest portion of greenhouse gas and emissions in the world. Agricultural section has the outstanding contribution in electricity industry; furthermore the processing and drying of agricultural products have the highest consumption energy. In the current research, the parameters of energy, the environment (global warming) and social costs of drying of apples slices at three temperatures 45, 55 and 65° C and the air velocity 0.5 m/s for different pretreatment of osmotic, ultrasound, blanching and microwave (each pretreatment at three levels) were evaluated. Result shown that the amount of time, energy consumption, specific energy and heat consumption decreased with increasing temperature and using different pretreatments as compared to control treatment. Also, energy, drying and thermal efficiency, increased with increasing air temperature. The highest amounts of energy and drying efficiency were obtained %5.04 and %5.62, respectively for microwave pretreatment involving 360 W power and 2.5 min at 65° C temperature. Normal treatment with 45°C temperature gave the lowest value of efficiency energy (%2.27) and drying (%2.38). Results revealed that the highest and lowest greenhouse gas for the withdrawal one kilogram of water from apple slices was produced 21.19 and 9.37 kgCO2, 10.05×10-4 and 4.45×10-4 kgCH4, 2.01×10-4 and 0.89×10-4 kgNO2 respectively. Also, the highest and lowest social costs for  leaving one kg of water from apple slices was obtained 34927.60 and 15449.04 Rials for steam power plant, 35263.45 and 15597.59 Rials for power plant and 30561.66 and 13517.91 Rials for combined cycle power plant, respectively.