Preliminary Fuel Use Results from Gin Audits
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Interest in improving sustainability in cotton production and processing has focused attention on fuel use by cotton gins for seed cotton drying. Audits are planned for multiple gin facilities over a diverse geography to establish baseline fuel usage and drying system efficiencies to reveal opportunities for improvement and guidance toward industry best practices. This first season, four gins were sampled. Fuel consumption was estimated based on air mass flow rate, specific heat capacity, and temperature increase. Pitot tubes and thermocouples sensed air flow and temperature; values were recorded using battery powered 1 and 4-channel data loggers. Fuel use efficiency in the first stage of seed cotton drying (tower dryer) was 14.6% in the one gin that returned usable data. As a result of this first season, sampling protocols and instrumentation have been developed that will provide better quality data in subsequent campaigns.
