Development of rice mill dust collection system using rice husk bed

Abstract

Agricultural residues or waste with grain-like or fibrous shapes has potential to be high-efficiency dust-filtration media. In this research, an innovative dust collecting silo was designed, based on the principle of packed-bed filtration and supported by experimental results. The packed husk filter was employed to clean the dust-laden air, emitted from a rice mill. The proposed system was not only useful in collecting fine dust but also served as husk storage, protecting raw husk from the effect of rain and wind. The dust collection efficiencies of the rice husk bed with a thickness of 0.125, 0.25, and 0.5 meters were investigated by filtrating fine dust of calcium carbonate particles (average size = 1.6 [micrometre]) from dust-laden air. The filtration face velocity was varied from 0.22, 0.48, 0.63 to 0.81 m/s. The observed experimental efficiency lay between 87-99%