Due to less residence time of rice inside the polisher, required degree of polishing cannot be achieved in a single pass. The collected rice was recycled for 60 times and the broken content and degree of rice polisher was measured after every 10 passes. The air escaped at the top and carried very fine bran particles with it. Experiments were conducted with brown rice of 10, 11, 12, and 13% (wb) moisture content.
Rice industry is one of the most energy consuming industries (Gupta and George 2009). It uses rice husk as a fuel. Saving of husk would also lead to co-generation of thermal energy in furnaces for boilers and dryers in the rice industry. Thus energy conservation in the rice industry would lead to reduction in the use of fuels and electricity (Baqui et al. 2007). If measures suggested in energy audit are properly implemented, it would reduce the cost of milled rice simultaneously with increased availability of husk stepping up the production of amorphous silica, silicon, ceramic materials, furfural etc. would be possible. Like capital, labour and material, energy is one of the production factor used to produce final product. In economic term, energy is demand-derived goods. The energy can be regarded as intermediate goods whose demand depends on the demand of final product.
Rice is fed to the paddy separator. Paddy rice is separated from brown rice and the separated paddy rice will then be removed. At the mill, it is commonly called “rice residue”. The paddy separator functions based on the following five principles:
1. Suitable speed
2. Holes on the tray
3. Different surface of rice -paddy rice is velutinous while brown rice is glossy
4. Slope of the tray
5. Flowing rate of the rice into the separator