Performance Studies of Sustainable Solar Dryer for Drying Agricultural Products

Abstract

A large portion of the world agricultural and food market is now dependent on dried fruits and vegetables. Drying of fruits is carried out using many methods, in this paper an approach is made using renewable source of energy to dry fruits and vegetables to reduce food wastage at the same time help the farmers. The solar dryer was fabricated using locally ­available materials like High quality wood, GI Collector sheet and Baffles etc. Performance studies were made on the solar dryer for different configurations with banana as drying product. Simulation results showed us the improvements in the drying characteristics when baffles were used inside the drying chamber. Through experiments it was evaluated that the ­efficiency of the solar dryer setup with baffles was 23.4% which was 8% more than efficiency of the solar dryer setup without baffles. The usage of artificial roughness beneath the collector plate and dehumidifier inside the drying chamber further increase the efficiency of the solar dryer system by 4%. It was also found that the drying time decreased by 32% when the solar dryer of configuration with baffles, Ribs and Dehumidifier was used. Keywords: Artificial Roughness, Baffles, Drying Characteristic, Dehumidifier, Solar Dryer, Simulation