• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.221-226
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• 2000

Hot air heater with light oil burner is the most common heater for greenhouse heating in the winter season in Korea. However, since the thermal efficiency of the heater is about 80∼85%, considerable unused heat amount in the form of exhaust gas heat discharges to atmosphere. In order to capture this exhaust heat a heat recovery system for plant bed heating in the greenhouse was built and tested in the hot air heating system of greenhouse. The heat recovery system is made for plant bed or soil heating in the greenhouse. The system consisted of a heat exchanger made of copper pipes, ${\Phi}12.7{\times}0.7t$ located in the rectangular column of $330{\times}330{\times}900mm$, a water circulation pump, circulation plastic pipe and a water tank. The total heat exchanger area is 1.5$m^2$, calculated considering the heat exchange amount between flue gas and water circulated in the copper pipes. The system was attached to the exhaust gas path. The heat recovery system was designed as to even recapture the latent heat of flue gas when exposing to low temperature water in the heat exchanger. According to the performance test it could recover 45,200 to 51,000kJ/hr depending on the water circulation rates of 330 to $690\ell$/hr from the waste heat discharged. The exhaust gas temperature left the heat exchanger dropped to $100^{\circ}C$ from $270^{\circ}C$ by the heat exchange between the water and the flue gas, while water gained the difference and temperature increased to $38^{\circ}C$ from $21^{\circ}C$ at the water flow rate of $690\ell$/hr. By the feasibility test conducted in the greenhouse, the system did not encounter any difficulty in operations. And, the system could recover 220,235kJ of exhaust gas heat in a day, which is equivalent of 34% of the fuel consumption by the water boiler for plant bed heating of 0.2ha in the greenhouse.