Experimental investigation of single open pan heat exchanger for jaggery making: A novel technique to enhance the performance of a system

Abstract

Jaggery is an essential ingredient in the food. Due to its medicinal properties, it keeps humans away from diseases. So it is imperative to make good quality jaggery.Mechanical and thermal energy are used to manufacture jaggery. Effective utilization of these energies is essential for better efficiency of jaggery plant. Current single-pan jaggery plants are 14.75%-24.36%. efficient. Due to its low efficiency, jaggery traders suffer losses, and the quality of jaggery also differs. To solve this problem, it is necessary to use a new operating system. In the modified plant, a conventional single pan with the open-hearth furnace is replaced by a single open pan heat exchanger and thermic fluid heater to cope up with above mentioned losses. First batch of modified plant has an efficiency of 74.84%, whereas it has been improved to 96.49% for the second batch due to the removal of stack losses. Process time for this plant has been reduced by 13%-27% for first batch and 29%-44% for second batch as compared to the conventional plant.