Investigation of a novel drying technique in tableware production process

The primary by-product of the sugarcane industry is sugarcane bagasse, which is considered a raw material for molded tableware production process. Studies proved that this industry is energy and water intensive. Attempts have been conducted to produce biodegradable bagasse plates utilizing a novel drying technique for the bagasse pulp using mechanical rollers for dehydration and cold drying instead of conventional vacuum drying. It was found that the new drying mechanism reduces the energy consumed by 32% and water consumption by 90% compared to the traditional molded tableware manufacturing process. The authors conducted a production cost comparison in respect to the equipment used between the traditional manufacturing process and the proposed innovative production process. There is a noticeable reduction in energy cost and water consumption after implementing the novel drying process.