초록
Purpose: The balance between miscanthus production and its cost effectiveness depends greatly on its moisture content during post processing. The objective of this research was to measure the moisture content using a non-destructive and non-contact methodology for in situ applications. Methods: The moisture content of comminuted miscanthus was controlled using a closed chamber, a humidifier, a precision weigher, and a real-time monitoring software developed in this research. A CMOS sensor equipped with $50{\times}$ magnifier lens was used to capture magnified images of the conditioned materials with moisture content level from 5 to 30%. The hypothesis is that when light is incident on the comminuted particles in an inclined manner, higher moisture content results in light being reflected with a higher intensity. Results: A linear regression analysis for an initiative hypothesis based on general histogram analysis yielded insufficient correlations with low significance level (<0.31) for the determination coefficient. A significant relationship (94% confidence level) was determined at level 108 in a reverse accumulative histogram proposed based on a revised hypothesis. A linear regression model with the value at level 108 in the reverse accumulative histogram for a magnified image as the independent variable and the moisture content of comminuted miscanthus as the dependent variable was proposed as the estimation model. The calibrated linear regression model with a slope of 92.054 and an offset of 32.752 yielded 0.94 for the determination coefficient (RMSE = 0.2%). The validation test showed a significant relationship at the 74% confidence level with RMSE 6.4% (n = 36). Conclusions: To compensate the inconsistent significance between calibration and validation, an estimation model robust against various systematic interferences is necessary. The economic efficiency of miscanthus, which is a promising energy resource, can be improved by the real-time measurement of its crucial material properties.
