Drying of shelled hazelnut by an ？nfrared heated dryer with compressed air

In this research, the design of infrared dryer designed for hazelnut drying in 2014, was improved and tested again in Giresun during the 2015 harvest season. It is also very humid like all regions where hazelnut is cultivated (13-18 g kg-1 dry air). Ambient air relative humidity was recorded 63-94 % during experiments. Hazelnut was dried as isolated from ambient air and drying air was supplied by compressor-air dryer set. Hazelnuts were kept at maximum allowed temperature (50 °C) during the experiments to be able to reach fastest drying. Dry air didn’t cause excess heating even over 100 °C temperatures since it continued to extract moisture from hazelnut. Compressed air was analyzed psychrometrically and compared with ambient air. Second series experiments (2015) confirmed 2014 experiments and Specific Energy was determined as 1.82-2.76 kWh kg-1 water (6.56-9.94 MJ kg-1 water). Drying time was recorded as 14-18 hours, however it was observed that it can be decreased by using more air and more energy