Development and performance evaluation of a novel solar dryer integrated with thermal energy storage system for drying of agricultural products.
Description
The solar dryer was designed, fabricated and analyzed its performance as well as proximate of the dried products. The data collected were used to analyze the performance of the developed solar dryer integrated with thermal energy storage for drying of agricultural products.
Files
Steps to reproduce
A total of 50 kg of each type (carrots and pineapples) were sliced in thin layers and dried using the developed solar dryer and the open sun drying (OSD) until their ultimate moisture content were less than 10% wet basis (w.b.). The instruments used for data collection were; The TES 132 solar power meter for measuring solar irradiance, SSN-11E USB data logger probes for measuring temperature. Kestrel 3000 wind meter for measuring airflow inside and outside the drying chamber and FF1976 constant digital weighing scale for measuring the weight of the products. The data collected includes; drying time, solar radiation, weight reduction, temperature and relative humidity. In addition, proximate analysis was conducted to determine whether there was a loss of nutritional composition in the dried products. The parameters that were determined include moisture content, ash content, crude fiber, fats content, protein, vitamins and minerals. These data were used to analyze; sensible heat energy storage of thermal energy storage (TES) materials (E), storage efficiency of TES materials〖 (η〗_s), weight of water evaporated from the product (〖 M〗_w), drying rate〖 ( D〗_r), thermal efficiency (〖 η〗_t ), collector efficiency 〖(η〗_c), and saving in drying time (%). In addition, a comparative evaluation of drying time, temperature, relative humidity for the dryer with TES materials, without TES materials and OSD were conducted. For more detail, read the published paper in ACS Omega journal: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsomega.3c07314
Institutions
Categories
Funding
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) which is coordinated by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM)
Reference no. 9-257