EVALUATION OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN TRADITIONAL TOBACCO CURING OVENS EVALUATION OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN TRADITIONAL TOBACCO CURING OVENS

Abstract

Tobacco has become one of the most important crops in Colombia, generating employment for both skilled and unskilled workers. We have found several problems in the post-harvesting of tobacco, one of which concerns the high cost of the fuel used in curing ovens. We therefore evaluated the traditional burner-type heat exchanger to determine fuel use efficiency. The information obtained clearly shows the great difficulty of maintaining stable temperatures inside the oven with this system of heat transfer by natural convection, creating environmental conditions that deviate significantly from those suggested for this process. These variations depend largely on the frequency of loading fuel into the burner. We also found that the energy efficiency when using coal is less than 10%.