Condensation and Dripping a Big Problem for Canola

What if we have the situation in which we have a bin of canola at 11% MC and 30 C and we decide to turn the fan on when the outside temp is 20 C.  You wouldn’t think this would be a problem as that cooler dry air hits the grain it will instantly warm to 30 C, resulting in a lowering of the RH and it will dry the canola.  The problem starts when the air leaves the grain at 30 C, and hits the colder roof of 20 C.  As it cools it will saturate and condensation, dripping and literally raining will occur in the bin.  This water will run down the roof and collect in the canola on the upper side walls, and will also collect directly on the top layer of canola which at the least will form a crust and at the worst will form a hot spot of spoilage that could spread to the whole bin.

Using the grain drying calculator I plugged in 11% MC and found that condensation would occur with as little difference as 4 C.  If the grain temperature was more than 4 degrees C warmer than the outside air, we would get condensation.   I tried it for  grain temp / outside temp for 30 / 26, 20 / 16 and 10 / 6.  Only four degrees difference, and we were on the verge of condensation.

Let’s walk through this with a little more detail.  We have canola at 11% MC and 30 C.  When we calculate the EMC RH for this we get an RH of 80.1% or 83.8%, depending on whose EMC equation we use.  In terms of absolute humidity this is 24 or 26  gr/m^3.  In other words canola at 11% and 30 C wants air around it, or wants to equalize to having air that has about 24-26 grams of water in a cubic meter.  And that’s fine until this relatively warm moist air hits the much cooler roof that is the same temperature as the outside air, 20 C.  When it hits the inside of the roof, it cools to 20 C — and this is where the problem starts — air at 20 C can, at most hold 17 grams of water per cubic meter.  That’s at most, at saturation.  For every cubic meter of air that hits and is cooled by the roof;  25 – 17 = 8 grams of water will be squeezed out as drops of condensed water.  That may not sound like much, but let’s consider a typical flow of 3000 CFM or 180,000 CF per hour or in terms of cubic meters:   180,000/35 = 5142 cubic meters per hour.  Multiply this by our 8 gr per cubic meter and we get over 41 kg or 90 pounds of water dripping onto and into our canola every hour.   Do you think this might be a problem?

To prevent condensation we can’t allow the grain to be more than 4 deg warmer. This is why you should turn your fans on immediately, even while you are filling your bins.  Waiting, into the evening when the temperature is cooler is yes good for drying, but not so good for condensation.  You can see though why there is an argument for keeping the fan on continuously so that the grain temp is always chasing the outside temp and is keeping it to within 4 deg of the outside temp.

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