Experimental evaluation of a two-stage indirect solar dryer with reheating coupled with HDH desalination system for remote areas

Abstract

In the present study, the performance evaluations of a two-stage indirect solar dryer with reheating coupled with humidification-dehumidification (HDH) water desalination systems are experimentally investigated. The distillate water production, drying the products and energy-saving represents the main objective of the present experimental work. Due to problems in the availability of distillate water and energy sources in remote areas, the proposed system represents a good option for remote areas. The proposed system consists of two sub-systems: (i) two-stage indirect solar dryer with reheating, which can use to remove the moisture contents from the plants and fruit; (ii) the HDH water desalination, which can use to production of distillate water. The experimental results show that, as the air flow increases from 50 to 75m3/h, the distillate water productivity increases from 29.55 to 42.3l/day and the moisture removal from the product increases from 8.33 to 12.37kg/day during the period 8:00am to 7:00pm. Use a two-stage dryer with reheating improved the moisture removal from the product by 71.78% in average as compared only to the first stage of drying unit. Also, the gain output ratio varies over ranges of 1.24–1.79 and 0.97–1.38 for the proposed system and the HDH desalination system only, when the airflow rate increases from 50 to 75m3/h. The gain output ratio of the proposed system improved by 29% in average as compared only to the HDH desalination system.