Success Stories

An engineer and scientist, Project Manager Dr. Vitaly Danchenko,
worked on rocket launch systems during the Soviet period in the 1980s. Since
1993, he has conducted research into grain storage techniques and has been
developing grain silos and complexes for the Ukrainian market.
Solving the issue of storing collected grain harvests is of strategic
importance to Ukraine since significant losses (approximately 30%) of the
grain harvest are typically experienced due to the absence of accessible,
effective moist grain storage technologies in both private farms and state
grain elevators. Grain which is not dried immediately after harvesting, quickly
becomes mouldy and then begins to rot until it can no longer be used.
Traditional moist grain storage technologies which require the use of expensive
dryers and the use of high volumes of fuel are not accessible to many
small and medium sized farms in Ukraine, Russia and the other countries of
the CIS.
In 1999 Dr. Danchenko submitted a project to the STCU to research
the storage of moist grains in modified atmosphere silos by increasing the
level of ozone and nitrogen in the air and by using fumigators. The project
was supported by Prof. Ronald Noyes of Oklahoma State University who also
made additions and improvements to the project concept.
The main purpose of the project is to create new waste-free grain
storage technologies. There are currently no effective, energy saving technologies
and equipment in Ukraine or in the USA for moist types of grain
storage without preliminary thermal drying. Such a technology is anticipated
to minimize losses during grain storage by up to 1-2% while decreasing energy
consumption by 5-10 times. The technologies should result in the threshold
of permissible grain moisture content for harvesting and placing for storage,
to be increased from 12-14% to 18-23%, or more. This would allow 1-2 weeks
earlier harvest and lower field grain losses. Scientific principles of the proposed technologies are
being developed under well-controlled laboratory conditions. The technologies have been tested
under field conditions using 5-10 ton granaries.
Thanks to its tightly knit international cooperation the project team has managed to produce
some impressive results. In August 2003 Dr. Danchenko and Dr. Noyes conceived a very powerful
solution to high speed, low energy aeration by developing a new, practical concept for crossflow
aeration and drying. This major scientific achievement is the basis for Dr. Danchenko’s new
research proposal to develop in-silo drying systems inside the corrugated steel silos developed as
the storage module in STCU Project #2491a. It is believed that this new grain storage aeration/drying
design concept is a patentable process/method design of major importance to the world grain
industry.