Investigation of exergy-energy and environ-economic performance parameters of active indirect solar dryer for pineapple drying without and with energy storage unit

Abstract

The quality, quantity and availability of energy, the environmental impact, and the economic importance (4E) of a forced convection indirect solar dryer without (setup-1) and with thermal energy storage (TES) system (setup-2) were analyzed during the drying pineapple. Once the tests were finished in setup-1, setup-2 was adopted by integrating with a system having paraffin as a TES unit. The temperature, velocity, and mass data were recorded to evaluate the 4E parameters. The collector and drying efficiency for setup-1 and setup-2 were 67.04, 66.97 % and 7.23, 10.84 %, respectively. Setup-2 was better in activation energy and specific energy consumption. The average exergy efficiency of collector and dryer for setup-1 and setup-2 were 2.33 and 2.12 % and 34.66 and 57.07 %, respectively. Other exergy parameters like inflow, outflow, and loss for collector and dryer and sustainability indicators like waste energy ratio, improvement potential, the environmental impact factor, and sustainability index were enhanced in setup-2. CO2 emission, mitigation, and credit were improved in setup-2. The energy payback period for setup-1 and setup-2 was 1.503 and 1.831 years, while the corresponding economic payback period was 1.41 and 0.93 years in 35 years, respectively. Setup-2 performed better than setup-1 based on the estimated parameters.