Abstract
The food industry is responsible for supplying the food demand of the ever-increasing global population. The food chain is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and global food waste accounts for one-third of produced food. A solution to this problem is preserving crops, vegetables, and fruits with the help of an ancient method of sun drying. For drying agricultural and marine products, several types of dryers are also being developed. However, they require a large amount of energy supplied conventionally from pollutant energy sources. The environmental concerns and depletion risks of fossil fuels persuade researchers and developers to seek alternative solutions. To perform drying applications, sustainable solar power may be effective because it is highly accessible in most regions of the world. Greenhouse dryers (GHDs) are simple facilities that can provide large capacities for drying agricultural products. This study reviews the integration of GHDs with different solar technologies, including photovoltaic (PV), photovoltaic-thermal (PVT), and solar thermal collectors. Additionally, the integration of solar-assisted greenhouse dryers (SGHDs) with heat pumps and thermal energy storage (TES) units, as well as their hybrid configuration considering integration with other renewable energy sources, is investigated to improve their thermal performance. In this regard, this review presents and discusses the most recent advances in this field. Additionally, the economic analysis of SGHDs is presented as a key factor to make these sustainable facilities commercially available.
Highlights
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.The world’s population is growing steadily and is projected to reach up to approximately 8.6 billion by 2030, 10.1 billion by 2050, and 12.7 billion by 2100
According to the results reported by researchers, integration of Greenhouse dryers (GHDs) with solar thermal collectors in all cases can considerably enhance the thermal performance of the greenhouse by providing the desired temperature for the air flowing inside, which has a significant effect on the overall drying process by reducing the drying time and providing a higher quality for the dried product
The main deficiency associated with passive structured solar-assisted greenhouse dryers (SGHDs) is that their thermal performance depends on several parameters such as solar radiation, wind speed, ambient temperature, and covering materials
Summary
With the growing concern on the depletion of fossil fuels, environmental pollutions, and global warming, the use of renewable energy sources (RESs) to power agricultural operations and the food supply chain processes is in the limelight [23,24]. The use of renewable energies in agriculture and food production systems will release the burden on the environment In this context, solar drying as a renewablebased post-harvest food processing method can reduce the use of conventional fossil fuels and considerably mitigate adverse impacts caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from this sector [12,25]. Solar energy-based advanced agricultural crop drying systems and their various aspects need extensive discussion to develop a sustainable food supply chain mitigating food insecurity in economic and environmentfriendly ways.
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