Portable Six-Port Reflectometer for Determining Moisture Content of Biomass Material

A portable six-port reflectometer for determining moisture content of biomass material is proposed for the first time in this paper. The proposed system consists of a 5.13-GHz reflectometer used with an open-ended half-mode substrate-integrated waveguide sensor. The complex permittivity of biomass (sawdust) was measured, and a dielectric-properties-based algorithm for moisture determination was developed. The reflectometer performance was verified by comparing the measured complex permittivity to results obtained with a commercial automatic network analyzer. Finally, the predicted moisture content was compared with the standard oven drying method.