Experimental investigation of drying of garlic clove in solar dryer using phase change material as energy storage

Abstract

This investigation deals with thermodynamic analysis, which offers an alternative approach to evaluate the performance of solar dryers and thin-layer drying characteristics of garlic cloves in a developed system. The garlic cloves were dried from a moisture content of 55.5 % (w.b.) to 6.5 % (w.b.) for 8 h. The drying data obtained were fitted to five different drying kinetics models. Of these, the model suggested by Midilli et al. [28] had the best fit with the drying behavior of garlic cloves. The energy efficiency without and with recirculation of the air exiting the drying chamber during the study varied from 43.06 to 83.73 %, and 3.98 to 14.95 %, respectively, while the exergy efficiency corresponding to the energy efficiency of the drying process ranged from 5.01 to 55.30 % and 67.06 to 88.24 %, respectively.