Grain Dryer

Hundreds of millions of tonnes of wheat, corn, soybean, rice and other grains as sorghum, sunflower seeds, rapeseed/canola, barley, oats, etc., are dried in Jinhua mobile grain dryers each year. In the main agricultural countries, drying comprises the reduction of moisture from about 17-30% w/w to values between 8 and 15%w/w, depending on the grain. The final moisture content for drying must be adequate for storage.

The more oil the grain has, the lower its storage moisture content will be (though its initial moisture for drying will also be lower). Cereals are often dried to 14% w/w, while oilseeds, to 12.5% (soybeans), 8% (sunflower) and 9% (peanuts).

Sunflower drying

For different types of sunflowers, the preservation moisture content is different. Oilseed sunflowers are better dried to 9 percent moisture content, while bird seed sunflowers are 10 percent moisture content. Compared to corn drying, sunflowers are more easily to be dried and kept in safe storage. What's more, high temperature may not have adverse effect on sunflowers kernel, which may be the reason of the fatty acid composition. There was no evidence of damage when air was heated up to 220 °F in drying. However, fine hairs and fibers on the seed coat of sunflowers may cause fire hazard. It is suggested that remove the flaming particles first when heating the sunflowers.

Bean drying

The seed coat of bean is quite fragile and easy to damaged in cracking and splitting, which may cause loss to the producer. Some studies on beans suggested that in order to avoid cracking, it is better to keep drying air above 40 percent relative humidity.