Experimental Investigation on Performance of Multi-Stage Dehumidification Heat Pump Tower Corn Drying System in High Cold Regions

In view of the problems of high energy consumption and heavy pollution in the drying process of large-scale multi-stage tower coal-fired corn in Northeast China, combined with the high cold characteristics of the regions, a multi-stage series dehumidification heat pump tower corn drying system was proposed, and a demonstration application project was established. The performance and life-cycle costs of the system were experimentally evaluated and compared to a traditional coal-fired corn drying tower. The results show that the system can achieve a supply air temperature above 68 degrees C under the ambient temperature of -20 degrees C. The total energy consumption of the system per hour is 595.5 kWh, and the specific moisture extraction rate reaches 3.39 kg/kWh. Moreover, the coefficient of performance of heat pump units reaches 3.0 - 6.3. Due to the attractive energy-saving potential, the operational cost-effectiveness of the multi-stage series dehumidification heat pump tower corn drying system can contribute to cut-down of life-cycle cost. It has been found that the life-cycle cost of the multi-stage series dehumidification heat pump tower corn drying system is 40.5% lower than that of the traditional coal-fired corn drying tower.