INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION (IJRSI)

ISSN No. 2321-2705 | DOI: 10.51244/IJRSI |Volume XII Issue IX September 2025

Page 3065

www.rsisinternational.org

Pneumatic Conveying Study of Rice Husk Based on Laboratory

Trails and Its Assessment.

Dr. J. Phani Krishna

Regional Business Head, Rieco industries Limited, Pune

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2025.120800276

Received: 22 September 2025; Accepted: 28 September 2025; Published: 04 October 2025

ABSTRACT

A conveying system of any kind is used to transport a material from one source place to destination or receiving

place. For the chosen method of pneumatic conveying, air is used as the transport medium. It is applicable to

most fine powder to granular materials, be they in that form naturally or have to be pulverised or crushed. In this

system, energy is needed to accelerate the material from rest, to lift it as required and to overcome the losses due

to friction. Rice husk is by-product which results from paddy, the husk is removed by friction as the paddy grains

pass between two abrasive surfaces that move at different speeds. It has been used as building material, fertilizer,

insulation material, or fuel. Combustion of rice hulls produces rice husk ash (RHA) which is a potential source

of amorphous reactive silica. Most of the ash is used in the production of Portland cement. The ash is a very

good thermal insulation material. Rice husk though been not easily transportable material, however, certain

operational sequences, precautions at feeding zone and with sufficient motive force (flow and pressure) rice husk

can be transported which was resulted in Conveying Flow lab tests. Rise husk has high silica content and is

abrasive, the conveying velocities are keen to investigate. This paper explains the setup used for this trials,

characterization of material used as feed, conveying parameters achieved.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Author

acknowledges the resources usage and directions to organize the data and analysis from In-house

infrastructure. The co-authors are deeply acknowledged for their contribution is data preparation, discussing the

variations to put up a comprehensiveness of the paper in logical fashion.

Key words: Conveying Systems, Rice Husk Lean phase Danse phase trial

Problem statement -To identify the root cause and appropriate type of pneumatic system for low density

material & impact of moisture in rice husk in lean phase.

Pneumatics conveying is often the perfect solution for the conveyance of dry powder form materials:

overpressure and under pressure create a fast air flow inside the pipelines, which transports the material directly

to the desired location. Safe, simple and cost-efficient. This makes pneumatic conveying the optimal bulk

material transport.

There are two types of conveying system.

Dilute Phase - In dilute-phase conveying, particles are fully suspended in the conveying air and transported at

low pressure and high velocity. Dilute-phase pressure conveying is one of the most common conveying methods

for powders or granules. It’s most often used with non abrasive, nonfragile materials that have a light bulk

density.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION (IJRSI)

ISSN No. 2321-2705 | DOI: 10.51244/IJRSI |Volume XII Issue IX September 2025

Page 3066

www.rsisinternational.org

Fig a: Lean Phase System

Dense phase

Dense phase conveying systems are a type of the pneumatic conveying system, which is using air to transport

bulk solids / powder in pipes. Dense phase conveying differs from the other main technology of pneumatic

conveying, dilute phase, by the fact to use only a small weight of air compared to the weight of product being

transported. It means that dense phase systems operate at a high solids load ratio and at low air velocity.

Pic 1b: Dense Phase System

Test Trail setup:

Rice husk conveying tests been conducted on the existing setup at Conveying Flow Lab. The feed station having

opening for bags discharging, fed the rice husk as received and discharge via rotor valve. The negative pressure

(Vacuum conveying) conveying been setup for this application.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION (IJRSI)

ISSN No. 2321-2705 | DOI: 10.51244/IJRSI |Volume XII Issue IX September 2025

Page 3067

www.rsisinternational.org

Pic2: Feed station

Pic3: Collection filter

At first, fed the material in feed station through batch wise as can see in fig 2. The bin mounted vent filter which

filters lighter density material and heavy density material after feeding all the material int the hopper. Material

discharges to the conveying line via RAL. With provided vacuum to convey material system, pipe size that was

used for experiment as 80NB and the total conveying length is about 60 meters. Material that used was Rice

husk which has moisture of appx 30%. Viewing from sight glass to see the conveying material to observe flow

patterns can be observed via sight glass and conveyed fines material were at collecting filter and then collected

at collecting hopper. As there is 30% moisture in rice husk, initially fed the material dumped, simulating the site

conditions where usually by means loaders will dumped the rice husk for transportation. While doing so,

observed the material sticking inside the rotary air lock and jamming occurred. This lead to conduct the

flowability test to record the flow properties of rice husk

Challenges

In Dilute phase pressure conveying material might stuck in flanges or in gasket. There are chances of leakages

in this type of systems. Trial which we did on Rice Husk. moisture is present in it because of that we face

issues/challenges in pending/Turing areas material is sticking in these areas. These are some challenges we face.

Material properties are mentioned below. When the material is conveying material

Trial Material properties

Name- Rice Husk

Bulk density – Loose = 79 kg/m

, Tapped- 98 kg/m

Moisture content- _______

Angle of repose- 45 DEG

Trial Conducted

We use Dilute phase conveying for Rice husk trail

Qty of Feed Material Received = 8.5 kg

Qty of Feed Material Conveyed = 8.5 kg

Particle size - (+5 MESH= 19%), (+ MESH= 26%), (+10 MESH=35%), (+20 MESH=76%)

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION (IJRSI)

ISSN No. 2321-2705 | DOI: 10.51244/IJRSI |Volume XII Issue IX September 2025

Page 3068

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Initial Pressure/ Vacuum (MMHG) – 120 bar

Capacity that we achieve- 8.5Kg

Ambient temperature – 30 C

Total Covarying length- 60 m

Pic: 4: Feed material

Pic 5: Choked material

Pic 6: Repose check

Result

Rice husk which is having many usages as mentioned earlier, to convey material through dilute phase system

one should design the hopper discharge system with valve size relatively bigger so it will discharge smoothly.

The Vacuum conveying method gives better results due to silica issues in the feed material rather than pressure

and any other mode.

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