Thermophysical properties of sugarcane, palmyra palm, and date-palm granular jaggery

Abstract

Effect of moisture content on thermo-physical properties of sugarcane, palmyra palm, and date-palm granular jaggery were investigated. Thermal conductivity and diffusivity were determined by line-heat-source transient heat-transfer methodology, while specific heat was calculated from additional data on bulk density of the samples. Thermal conductivity, diffusivity, specific heat, and bulk density was found to vary from 0.08 to 0.39 W m-1 K-1, 0.10 to 0.13 10-6 m2 s-1, 1.19 to 2.97 kJ kg-1 K-1, and 510 to 1310 kg m-3, respectively, for a moisture range of 2.0-14.3 (%d.b.); all at an average temperature of 30C. All these properties exceptthermal diffusivityfollowed an increasing trend; with the increase in moisture content, each showed a high correlation coefficients. The variation of thermal diffusivity was found to be insignificant.