INTRODUCTION

Rice milling industry is one of the most energy consuming industries. The important
utilities in a rice mill are water, air, steam, electricity and labour. In a rice mill some of the
operations are done manually namely, cleaning, sun drying, feeding paddy to the bucket elevators,
weighing and packaging, etc. So the man-hours are also included in energy accounting. Water is
used for soaking and steam generation. Electricity is the main energy source for these rice mills
and is imported form the state electricity board grids. Electricity is used to run motors, pumps,
blowers, conveyors, fans and lights. The paddy milling consumes significant quantity of fuels and
electricity. The major energy consuming equipments in the rice milling units are; boilers and steam
distribution, blowers, pumps, conveyers, elevators, motors, transmission systems and weighing
Though, wide variety of technologies has been evolved for efficient use of energy for various
equipments of rice mills, so far, only a few have improved their energy efficiency levels. Most of
the rice mills use old and locally available technologies and are also completely dependent on
locally available technical personnel.

Energy Demands in Rice Mill Industry

There are various operations in a rice mill and the energy required for parboiling operations
as: in soaking process the hot water requirement for soaking one tonne of paddy was estimated to
be 1,200 kg. The heat required raising the temperature of water from 25 °C–85 °C was calculated
83.72 kWh. The steaming operation, if carried out immediately after the soaking, needed about
24.42 kWh per tonne of paddy. Drying operation required hot air at 80 °C to the extent of
50 m3/min for 4 h to dry one tonne of paddy which means an energy requirement of 159.30 kWh
per tonne of paddy. Hence, the energy requirement for complete parboiling operation came to
267.47 kWh per tonne of paddy produced. Parboiling and milling sections consumed 4.7 × 109 and
1.86 × 108 kWh/year, respectively. The total energy requirement for the rice industry was
4.86 × 109 MJ/year. (S. K. Goyal, 2004)

Existing System

The most commonly adopted method of burning the solid fuels is used in the direct
combustion. The rice miling industry use biomass waste such as rice husks as solid fuels and fossil
fuel like coal is used as a backup. The combustion occurred to raise up the temperature of the
boiler and the steam produced will directly flows to the turbine to generate electricity .Figure 1
shows the percentage of various fuels that are used for combustion. Most boilers use fossil fuels
to generate electricity and only 18% are come from the biomass wastes.
Paradigm Shift

1. Improving biomass waste by torrefaction process

Rice husk is a by-product of rice and has a good value as a biomass fuel. This biomass amounts to
20 % of total rough rice (paddy) produced. Rice husk is mainly used as fuel for parboiling and
drying of paddy before milling. To improve the physical and chemical properties of the biomass
waste, the torrefaction process can be done. Torrefaction is a mild pyrolysis which occurred in the
low temperature ( 200C-300C).This process can increase the calorific values of the biomass wastes
hence generating more energy for the boiler operation.

2. Gasifier Application

The rice milling operation produces a large amount of rice husk (around 22% of paddy). One of
the major advantages of rice husk is its ability to be used as fuel to generate electricity through
combustion (boiler and turbine) and gasification technologies. Normally, 2 kg of rice husk when
used in gasifier can produce 1 kWh of electricity. Currently individual rice mills have installed
two different capacity diesel generators (125 to 625 KVA rating) to meet both drying and milling
as well as only mill operations. It is possible to generate synthesis gas from the rice husk. With a
few modifications, the synthesis gas can be used in these generators to generate powe

3. Applying Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC)

Coal gasification technology, often referred to as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC),
is the process of gasifying coal to produce electricity. The coal is gasified by burning finely-
crushed coal in an environment with less than half the amount of oxygen needed to fully burn the
coal. Essentially, the coal is not burned directly but undergoes a reaction with oxygen and steam.
This produces what is known as synthetic gas or “syngas.” This gas is then combusted in a
combined cycle generator to produce electricity. The technology integrates the production of
purified gas and the production of electricity. In terms of environmental benefits, the technology
reduces emissions of sulphur dioxide, particulates and mercury, as well as of carbon dioxide, in
particular when combined with carbon capture and storage.

4. Applying Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)

The term BECCS refers to the concept of combining bioenergy applications (including all forms
of power, heat, and fuel production) with CCS. BECCS projects have the potential to be negative
emissions technologies (NETs) that can remove CO2 emissions from the atmosphere by either
stimulating natural carbon uptake and increasing terrestrial and aquatic carbon sinks or applying
engineering approaches.This concept is suitable to be use in the industry that have a boiler which
emits a huge amount of CO2.

References

S. K. Goyal, S. V. (2004). Energy use pattern in rice milling industries—a critical appraisal.
Journal of Food Science and Technology, 51(11), 2907.