Intermittent Drying of Beans in a Spouted Bed

Carioca beans are a highly nutritious grain, in terms of the amount of protein, iron and potassium as well as carbohydrates and fiber and as a source of vitamins. The moisture content of recently picked beans is too high for good preservation and storage, resulting in the need for drying before packaging. In this work, the drying of Carioca beans in a laboratory scale spouted bed under intermittent conditions of the drying air was experimentally analyzed. Experiments carried out consisted of two types of intermittent regime: intermittence in the spout regime, referred to as spouted/fixed bed and intermittence of the air supply to the bed, called spouted bed/rest. The results were compared to those for bean drying in a spouted bed dryer without intermittence.