Experimental investigation of the performance of paraffin wax-packed floor on a solar dryer

Abstract

Organic paraffin wax, a phase change material (PCM), was used as the heat-storing material in this study. The novelty of this work is the application of a PCM-packed floor in a conventional solar dryer to reduce the absolute drying time of crops. A PCM-packed solar dryer prototype model was constructed with an extendable drying chamber for easy loading, unloading, tilting, and shuffling the food products. The innovative drying setup was constructed to reduce human efforts and improve the drying in the preservation of food products. Four crops (guava, banana, coconut, ladies’ finger) were chosen for the experimental testing of the fabricated model. The samples were tested using the solar dryer with and without the PCM. The outcomes revealed that PCM usage helped retain the heat longer than the test without PCM. The drying time of all four crops was decreased by about 3-4 hours by installing the PCM, thereby reducing the crop drying time per day. The peak temperature attained by the crops in the presence of PCM had considerably improved, i.e., 7.81 % for guava, 4.55 % for banana, 3.125 % for coconut, and 8.33 % for ladies’ finger. The outcomes revealed that the colour, fragrance, and quality of the solar-dried products were better than the sun-dried products.