Moringa oleifera is a multipurpose and exceptionally nutritious vegetable tree with a variety of potential uses. It is a sub-tropical species that is known by different regional names such as benzolive, drumstick tree, kelor, marango, mulangay, nebeday, saijhan, mooringai and sajna.
The challenges of the Moringa Leaves Drying Process without losing nutritional values
Drying the leaves of Moringa Oleifera is the most critical aspect of processing the product.
- Sun drying of moringa leaves leads to the loss of vitamins and minerals
- it needs drying immediately after the harvesting of leaves
- Delayed drying of leaves leads to the growth of molds and poor quality of the dried leaves
MAI incurred very high electricity expenses as they used a huge electric oven, which consumed a high amount of electricity to produce acceptable dryness of the product.
Also, the drying process took a long time, which was an added problem. Sometimes, MAI also used organic fuels like “Bagasse” or charcoal but such fuels left carbon on the dried leaves. This conventional method forced MAI to maintain a high temperature to make the drying time faster. Since the high temperature has negative effects, it increased the risk of damaging or decreasing the quality of the product.
The Bry-Air Solutions
Moringa leaves drying using a desiccant dehumidifier is highly recommended as the conventional hot air-drying method, is inefficient when it came to large scale drying. Desiccant dehumidifiers maintain the quality of dried products by providing constant dry air at medium temperatures all year round.Bry-Air Airgineers helped solve MAI’s problems by installing a desiccant dehumidifier to supply dry air directly to their drying room in a 100% recirculation mode (closed-loop). MAI provided a separate air-conditioning unit to keep the temperature below 40°C to ensure high product quality while drying.
MAI’s decision to shift to desiccant dehumidification resulted in a 200-300% decrease in drying time, which boiled down to cost savings in electricity while maintaining the high quality of the product. Bry-Air Dehumidifier’s performance and the benefits that came along with it satisfied MAI’s management.
