Abstract World Food Program reports that more than 821 million people are subjected to acute hunger despite sufficient amount of food being produced. One of the underlying reasons is the food wastage due to poor preservation techniques and the energy cost of the established processing methods. Drying techniques are an effective means for reducing post-harvest food loss. However, the existing industrial drying techniques consume 20–25% of the energy used in the food processing chain. A system that utilizes the waste heat recovered from a diesel engine exhaust flue gas is proposed and an initial prototype tested. The system requires no external energy to operate the drying process; hence no CO2 is generated as a result of this process. Furthermore, the entropy is reduced by 0.206 kJ/kg.K as the overall thermal efficiency increases by 8.46%. It is estimated that the payback period is in the range of 321 days. Drying experiments were conducted to assess the dried food quality of five different staple food products, i.e. potato, pumpkin, carrot, radish, and apple. The drying performance (moisture removal rate) and product quality (Color analysis and Vitamin C analysis) conformed to the current industry standard. The overall performance assessment suggests that the system has the potential to reduce current levels of emission in food drying process and could be a stepping stone towards the development of energy-efficient food preservation technique.

中文翻译：

---

一种新型余热食品干燥系统的实验研究

摘要 世界粮食计划署报告称，尽管生产的食物数量充足，但仍有超过 8.21 亿人遭受严重饥饿。根本原因之一是由于保存技术差和既定加工方法的能源成本而造成的食物浪费。干燥技术是减少收获后食物损失的有效手段。然而，现有的工业干燥技术消耗了食品加工链所用能源的 20-25%。提出了一种利用从柴油发动机废气中回收的废热的系统，并对初始原型进行了测试。该系统不需要外部能源来运行干燥过程；因此，此过程不会产生 CO2。此外，随着整体热效率增加 8.46%，熵减少了 0.206 kJ/kg.K。预计投资回收期在321天左右。进行干燥实验以评估五种不同主食产品的干燥食品质量，即马铃薯、南瓜、胡萝卜、萝卜和苹果。干燥性能（水分去除率）和产品质量（颜色分析和维生素C分析）符合现行行业标准。整体性能评估表明，该系统有可能降低当前食品干燥过程中的排放水平，并可能成为开发节能食品保鲜技术的垫脚石。干燥性能（水分去除率）和产品质量（颜色分析和维生素C分析）符合现行行业标准。整体性能评估表明，该系统有可能降低当前食品干燥过程中的排放水平，并可能成为开发节能食品保鲜技术的垫脚石。干燥性能（水分去除率）和产品质量（颜色分析和维生素C分析）符合现行行业标准。整体性能评估表明，该系统有可能降低当前食品干燥过程中的排放水平，并可能成为开发节能食品保鲜技术的垫脚石。