Abstract:
Electric Injera baking mitads are the most prevalent and energy intensive appliances used
in Ethiopia and encounters bulk amounts of heatloss. Even though it is inefficient, the
apparatus has high market penetration and it is continuing at itscurrent higher energy
consumption and lower efficiency, subsequently higher monthly energy billfor the
consumers and high energy waste for the national grid.In this research, the improvement
of an electric Injera baking mitad using steel powder as additive material with gypsum as
insulator will be experimentally studied.This study aims to make experimental
investigation and analysis of electric mitad: plate thermal conductivity improvement,
energy consumption, heat energy loss and insulation system.
Before testing improved electrical mitad thermal performance four samples (Ao, A1, A2, &
A3) with different compositions of steel powder (0g, 15g, 25g& 35g) and constant 75g
clay soil were prepared to decided appropriate compositions. For this study 1.5Kgof steel
powder (i.e. 25% weight of mitad) and 4.5Kgof clay soil (i.e.75% weight of mitad) with
K=1.46W/m.K is used to prepare mitad plate composition. This composition will
increase the thermal conductivity of clay soil by 42%. The reason to select this
composition was if the thermal conductivity is high it is difficult to control the baking
process, like baking on metal and the specific heat capacity will decrease when thermal
conductivity increase.
The results ofexperimental investigation were analytically analyzed and the specific
average baking energy was 0.45 kWh per kg of injera (or) 0.198 kWh per injera, while
the thermal efficiency byconsidering baking of 4.395kg of Injera was 86.4%. The electric
Injerabaking process was loss 1400.02KJ of heat energy (i.e.14.08% from 10300KJ input
energy). The value obtained fromthe analysis reduces the energy loss by more than 50%
from the ranges of (40 - 60%) from previous studies. From heat energy loss 92.17%,
3.95%, 2.08%, 1.04%0.76% accounts for retained, baking plate, bottom enclosure, side
enclosure and cover lid respectively.
Keywords: injera baking, thermal efficiency, electrical mitad, baking time.