BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY

BAHIR DAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF RESEARCH AND POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
BAHIR DAR ENERGY CENTER

DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL TESTING OF SOLAR THERMAL

BREAD BAKING SYSTEM

BY

GASHAW MINAYE

JAN, 2020
BAHIR DAR, ETHIOPIA
 DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL TESTING OF SOLAR THERMAL
BREAD BAKING SYSTEM

By

Gashaw Minaye

A thesis submitted to the school of Research and Graduate Studies of Bahir Dar Institute of
Technology, BDU in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science
in the Sustainable Energy Engineering in Bahir Dar Energy Center.

Advisor Name: Bimrew Tamrat (PhD)

Jan, 2020
Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

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DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, declare that the thesis comprises my own work. In compliance with
internationally accepted practices, I have acknowledged and refereed all materials used in
this work. I understand that non-adherence to the principles of academic honesty and
integrity, misrepresentation/ fabrication of any idea/data/fact/source will constitute sufficient
ground for disciplinary action by the University and can also evoke penal action from the
sources which have not been properly cited or acknowledged.

Name of the student: Gashaw Minaye Signature _____________

Date of submission: ________________

Place: Bahir Dar

This thesis has been submitted for examination with my approval as a university advisor.

Advisor Name: Bimrew Tamrat (PhD)

Advisor’s Signature: _____________________________

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 © 2020

Gashaw Minaye
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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BAHIR DAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY-BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF RESEARCH AND GRADUATE STUDIES

BAHIR DAR ENERGY CENTER

THESIS APPROVAL SHEET

Student:
_____________________________________________________________________________
Name Signature Date
The following graduate faculty members certify that this student has successfully presented the
necessary written final thesis and oral presentation for partial fulfillment of the thesis-option
requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Sustainable Energy Engineering.

Approved By:
Advisor:
______________________________________________________________________________
Name Signature Date

I
nternal Examiner:
______________________________________________________________________________
Name Signature Date
Chair Holder:
______________________________________________________________________________
Name Signature Date
Faculty Dean:
______________________________________________________________________________
Name Signature Date

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Acknowledgment

First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to my respected advisor Bimrew Tamrat (PhD) for
his invaluable guidance and advice. Secondly, I would like to thank Bahir Dar Energy Center
staff members for their encouragement and food engineering technical assistants for their support
by facilitating instruments. And last but not least, my thanks go to my classmates for sharing
their knowledge and experience, both on the theoretical and technical aspects.

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Contents
DECLARATION.............................................................................................................................ii
Acknowledgment.............................................................................................................................v
List of Figure................................................................................................................................viii
List of Table....................................................................................................................................ix
Nomenclature...................................................................................................................................x
Abstract.........................................................................................................................................xiv
1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................1
1.1 Background............................................................................................................................1
1.2 Statement of Problem.............................................................................................................2
1.3 Objectives of the Study..........................................................................................................3
1.3.1 General Objective............................................................................................................3
1.3.2 Specific Objectives..........................................................................................................3
1.4 Scope of the Study.................................................................................................................3
1.5 Significance of the Study.......................................................................................................3
2. Literature Review.....................................................................................................................5
2.1 Overview of Bread Baking System........................................................................................5
2.2 Bread Baking Technologies and Challenges.........................................................................6
2.3 Bread Quality Analysis..........................................................................................................9
2.4 Solar Energy Collectors.......................................................................................................11
2.5 Thermal Energy Storage......................................................................................................13
2.5 Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF)...................................................................................................17
3. Materials and Methods...........................................................................................................21
3.1 Materials..........................................................................................................................21
3.2 Methods...................................................................................................................................22
3.2.1 Solar Thermal Bread Baking System Description........................................................22
3.2.2 Design of Solar Thermal Bread Baking System...........................................................23
3.2.2.1 Energy Required for Bread Bakery............................................................................23
3.2.2.2 Design of Thermal Energy Storage System...............................................................24
3.2.3 Piping System Design and selection.............................................................................35
3.2.4 Determining Pressure loss and pump selection.............................................................37
3.2.5 Thermal Insulation Design............................................................................................39
3.2.6 Parabolic Dish Concentrator Design.............................................................................42

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 3.3 Experimental Testing of System.....................................................................................48
3.4 Performance Evaluation of the system.................................................................................49
3.4.1 Optical Performance of parabolic dish concentrator.....................................................49
3.4.2 Useful Energy Collected and Thermal Loss..................................................................50
3.4.3 Performance of Solar Thermal Bread Baking System..................................................53
3.5 Bread Quality Analysis........................................................................................................54
4 Results and Discussion...........................................................................................................56
4.1 Results of Experimental Testing..........................................................................................58
4.2 Results of Performance Evaluation of the System...............................................................63
4.3 Results for Bread Quality Analysis......................................................................................65
5 Economic Analysis.................................................................................................................68
6 Conclusions and Recommendations.......................................................................................71
6.1 Conclusions..........................................................................................................................71
6.2 Recommendations................................................................................................................71
References......................................................................................................................................73
Appendix........................................................................................................................................78

List of Figures

vii
Figure 2.1 Schematic of a parabolic trough collector....................................................................11

Figure 2.2 schematic diagram of parabolic dish reflector.............................................................12

Figure 2.3: methods of thermal energy storage.............................................................................14

Figure 3.1 Solar thermal bread baking system setup.....................................................................22

Figure 3.2: Eutectics mixture of NaNo3 (60%wt) and KNo3 (40%wt) solar salt...........................26

Figure 3.3: Aluminum chips additive (left) & mixture of solar salt with chips (right).................28

Figure 3.4: Energy transfer from Hot PCM to baking plate surface and its thermal network.......29

Figure 3.5: Schematic diagram of PCM thermal storage cross section.........................................33

Figure 3.6. Spiral coiled copper pipe (a) & solar salt filled inside the storage container (b)........35

Figure 3.7 Oil circulation pump from used food processing lab...................................................39

Figure 3.8. Glass wool insulation material....................................................................................41

Figure 3.9: Cross section of parabolic collector with circular receiver.........................................44

Figure 3.10: Parabola focal length and curvature with a varing rim angle....................................45

Figure 3.11: Cross-section of spiral coiled pipe receiver..............................................................46

Figure 3.12: Locating the actual focal length of the receiver.......................................................47

Figure 3.13: Black painted spiral coil absorber.............................................................................48

Figure 3.14: Experimental setup of the system.............................................................................49

Figure 3.15: Absorber thermal resistance model...........................................................................51

Figure 4.1: Daily solar irradiance and ambient temperature distribution......................................58

Figure 4.2: Daily the receiver/absorber temperature profile with time.........................................59

Figure 4.3: Daily collector fluid outlet temperature profile with time..........................................60

Figure 4.4: storage salt temperature profiles with charging time..................................................61

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Figure 4.5: The daily salt temperature profile inside the storage with time..................................62

Figure 4.6: Temperature profile of bread core measured from its center......................................63

Figure 4.7: Texture analyzer used to test the crispness of bread..................................................65

Figure 4.8: Bread baking process (a) Before baking (b) While baking (c) After baking..............67

List of Tables

Table 2.1: Typical parameters of thermal energy storage methods...............................................14

Table 2.2: Thermo-physical properties of some inorganic PCMS................................................16

Table 2.3: Advantages and Disadvantages of water as HTF.........................................................18

Table 2.4: Typical heat transfer fluids used for solar thermal systems.........................................19

Table 3.1: Corrosion rate of PCM storage tank materials.............................................................25

Table 3.2: Thermophysical properties of the mixture (solar salt +aluminum chips).....................27

Table 3.3: Insulating materials with their thermal conductivity at room temperature..................40

Table 3.4: Properties of typical reflector materials.......................................................................42

Table 3.5: Dough composition......................................................................................................48

Table 4.1: Basic parameters and dimensions of thermal storage unit...........................................56

Table 4.2: Typical design specification of parabolic dish reflector...............................................57

Table 4.3:Geometrical parametrs of the spiral coil receiver..........................................................57

Table 4.4: Results for thermal performance parameters of parabolic dish solar collector............64

Table 5.1: List of materials and the corresponding cost used to construct the setup....................68

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Nomenclature

Aa Aperture area of the dish (m2)

am Fraction of PCM salt melted
Ar Receiver area (m2)
B Volume thermal expansion (℃−1)
C Concentration ratio
C Clearance between consecutive coil (m)
Cp Specific heat capacity (kJ/kg℃)
C pm Specific heat capacity of the mixture (kJ/kg℃)
Da Aperture diameter of the dish (m)
Ds Storage diameter (m)
Dp Baking plate diameter (m)
Dic Inner diameter of spiral coil (m)
Doc Outer diameter of spiral coil (m)
Dr Receiver diameter (m)
E Volume expansion of the bread
f Focal distance (m)
f Friction factor for straight pipe
fr Friction factor for spiral coiled pipe
GB Beam or direct irradiance (w/m2)
g Gravitational acceleration (m/s2)
hL Head loss (m)
hv Heat of vaporization of water (kJ/kg)
h Convective heat transfer coefficient (w/m2℃)
K Thermal conductivity (w/m℃)
Ka Thermal conductivity of the additive (w/m℃)
kL Head loss coefficient for minor losses
Km Thermal conductivity of the mixture (w/m℃)

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kp Thermal conductivity of copper pipe (w/m℃)
K s, Thermal conductivity of the solar salt (w/m℃)
L Coil length (m)
Lc Effective characteristics length (m)
m Mass of storage material (kg)
N Number of turns of the coil
Nu Dimensionless Nusselt number
P Pitch of consecutive coil (m)
Pr Prandtl number
Qu Useful heat of the collector (kJ)
Ra Rayleigh number
Re Reynolds number
rr Parabolic radius (m)
Tb Boiling temperature of water (℃)
TL Liquid phase temperature of pcm (℃)
Tm Melting temperature of pcm (℃)
T p ,f Final baking plate temperature (℃)
T p ,i Initial baking plate temperature (℃)
Ts Solid phase temperature of pcm (℃)
T∞ Ambient temperature (℃)
Uo Overall heat transfer coefficient (w/m2℃)
u Mean fluid velocity (m/s)
Vc Volume occupied by coil (m3)
Vs Volume of energy storage (m3)
∆V Volume change due to thermal expansion (m3)
∆L Brightness difference
∆a Redness difference
∆b Yellowness difference

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Greek Symbols
φ Volume concentration of the additive (aluminum chips)
φr Rim angle (degree)
ρ Density (kg/m3)
ρm Density of the mixture (solar salt +aluminum chips) (kg/m3)
μ Dynamic viscosity (pa s)
𝝂 Kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
σ Stefan-Boltzmann constant (w/m2.k4)
ε Emissivity
𝜆 Latent heat of phase transition (kJ/kg)
α Thermal diffusivity (m2/s)
αv Thermal expansion coefficient
ηc Solar to thermal conversion efficiency of solar collector
ηo Optical efficiency of the solar collector
Abbreviations
HTF Heat transfer fluid
LHS Latent heat storage
PDR Parabolic dish reflector
PCM Phase change material
PTR Parabolic trough reflector
SHS Sensible heat storage

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Abstract

Bread is a staple food prepared from wheat flour and water called dough. Generally baking
process needs high temperature in the order of 180-220℃. But the possibility of baking up to a
plate temperature of 160℃ was noticeable using well insulated and controlled baking
environment. The trend of bread baking system depends on electricity, biomass (wood), fossil
fuels which have undesirable environmental effect.
The purpose of this study was design and experimental testing of solar thermal baking system.
The uses a 0.89m2 aperture parabolic dish collectors to capture solar radiation via spiral coiled
absorber tube embedded in aluminum plate and the hot HTF (Shell Thermal oil) circulates
through 8mm outer diameter spirally coiled copper pipe inside the storage unit filled with 6kg
solar salt PCM having a melting temperature of 220℃. The thermal storage was considered as a
heat source for baking at any time of the day. Aluminum chips of 10% mass fraction was added
to enhance the thermal conductivity of the salt which limits the charging/ discharging time. The
experimental setup of the system was fabricated using locally available materials and test was
conducted during clear sky day. A baking plate surface temperature of 160℃ was achieved and
the corresponding baking time was 48 minutes. The maximum storage salt temperature reached
was 265℃ with 12 hour of charging time. The quality of bread baked were competitive with the
conventional bread baking systems.
Keywords: - Spiral coil, Solar Thermal, Energy storage, Parabolic Dish, PCM, baking plate

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 1. Introduction

1.1 Background

During the last centuries, world energy demand relied to a great extent on fossil fuels. Annually,
energy consumption progresses by an average of 1% in developed countries and 5% in
developing countries[1]. Due to the continuous rise in energy demand, several expectations
reveal that fossil fuel will not meet this growing demand and its cost will definitely increase
sharply. Energy is a prerequisite to economic stability and its supply at an affordable cost for the
both the developed and developing world cannot be guaranteed. It is known that two of the most
abundant resources on earth are sunlight and water. Yet people do not typically think of these
resources as the solution to any upcoming energy crisis or as the fuel that will bring clean air to
our country and the world at large.

Bread is a staple food prepared from wheat flour and water dough by baking process. Various
physiochemical and biological transformations such as evaporation of water, gelatinization of
starch, volume expansion, crust formation, denaturation of protein, browning reactions take place
simultaneously during baking. Thus, bread baking is very complicated subject due to its complex
baking process. The main challenge in bread baking process is producing high quality bread as it
is a non-reversible process, thus unsatisfactory product has to be discarded and this would be
economically unfavorable[1], [2]. Baking process is a simultaneous heat and mass transfer
process. During baking, water evaporates and the vapor condenses at the colder side of the
chamber. These evaporation–condensation processes will continue until the temperature of the
whole crumb reaches 100 °C[3].

Bread is the major necessity for people all over the world especially in Ethiopia. It accounts for a
major share of food consumption next to Enjera in all parts of the country. In addition to daily
household consumption bread (Difo Dabo) was baked for Holydays, Birth days, Religious and
other ceremonies. Baking in Ethiopia is mainly done through conventional methods using
electrical ovens, fossil fuel, biomass (fire wood) which are now depleting and the main source of

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global warming. So that it is a critical need for the development of alternative, appropriate,
affordable methods of baking system due to the upcoming energy cost and crisis. Most of the
research works published on bread baking process do not give attention to use solar thermal
systems for baking.

In order to adopt the proposed solar thermal bread baking system effectively for small scale
bakeries the following needs has to be satisfied[4];

► Baking should be performed both indoor and outdoor as the users intension
► Baking should be carried out at any time of the day
► Baking time and bread quality must be comparable to conventional baking

1.2 Statement of Problem

It is obvious that our country’s bread baking energy usage mainly depends on biomass, fossil
fuels, and electricity. But, due to the limiting access to electricity bread baking is through
biomass (wood log) which is the cause for deforestation and global warming which is the current
burning issue of our planet. And also, electric power fluctuation and failure greatly affects bread
quality which is undesirable to bread bakers and for consumers. It is significant to develop
environment-friendly baking system to address the rising cost and environmental effect of using
conventional fuels.

Different researches have been developed to use solar thermal energy for baking process but
little attention was paid to prove the true potential of the resource and the capability of the
resource to replace conventional baking process through experimental testing. The existing
thermal baking system needs continual improvements on energy storage and utilization of solar
energy for bread baking. Thus, this study is intended to design solar thermal energy based bread
baking system with suitable PCM thermal storage with enhanced heat transfer mechanism and
well controlled or insulated baking unit. Thus, this system is a realistic solution to the challenges
associated with the use of non- renewable energy resources as means of power source and the
increasing cost of conventional energy sources.

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1.3 Objectives of the Study
1.3.1 General Objective

The main objective of this study is to design and experimental testing of solar thermal bread
baking system.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

To accomplish this study, the following main specific objectives were addressed:
 design & development of solar thermal bread baking system
 experimental testing of the system
 performance evaluation of solar thermal bread baking system
 bread quality analysis
 economic analysis of the system

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1.4 Scope of the Study

The design of solar thermal bread baking system is wider concept. This study mainly focuses on
detail design and selection of appropriate solar collector type, suitable thermal energy storage,
best fit heat transfer fluid, determining heat loss mechanisms associated in the absorber section,
fabrication of prototype, the testing of bread baking system, bread quality characterization and
finally economic analysis of the system. This study didn’t cover the structural design of the
supports and automatic tracking system design.

1.5 Significance of the Study

Bread baking is a lucrative business for private and small-scale enterprises in Ethiopia. Because,
they offer their baking products (breads) to different markets such as household use, hotels,
cafeterias, universities, wholesale and others where bread is required.

It is significant to point out that, solar thermal bread baking system has the requisite potential of
providing a promising and commercially viable alternative to those non- renewable energy
sources.

The main significances of this thesis work were:

► Minimize energy cost as solar energy is freely available.

► Creates viable option for fossil fuel dependent bread bakeries.
► Zero GHG emission thus, environmentally friendly.
► Used in both indoor and outdoor baking.
► Reduce deforestation because, large amount of biomass is used for traditional bakeries.
► Health benefits, since while using biomass-based bakeries there is huge amount of smoke
which is harmful to human health.
► Due to the rise of electric energy cost tariff, using solar thermal energy for bread baking
process is best options.
► Improved bread quality if properly utilized, means if power suddenly stops during baking
the bread quality is poor.
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► Best opportunity for entrepreneurs, privates and small-scale enterprises.

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 2. Literature Review

2.1 Overview of Bread Baking System

Throughout recorded history bread has been popular food in most parts of the world and is one
of the world’s man-made foods. Bread baking is closely related to people’s daily life and electric
heating ovens are commonly used for the preparation of bread, cookies, pastries and cakes, etc.
The maximum set temperature of the baking oven was 220 ℃, during the experimental and
validation studies[5], [6]. Baking operations are characterized by their high energy consumption.
Energy optimization for this operation is important, but is constrained by the product quality
attributes, mainly color and texture (softness and crispiness). A model for the development of
product quality of bread products has been created by [7] and experiments performed at a fixed
baking temperature of 200°C in combination with 100 W of microwave powers. CFD
optimization of commercial bread baking oven was presented by [8] in order to minimize the
effective baking time and to improve the energy efficiency of the baking process. Thus, it results
in 10% energy savings of baking by reducing the baking time. The thermal energy management
of the bread baking process was analyzed by [9] and quantifies the energy required to bake the
dough, and analysis of various heat losses from the oven chamber.

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The direct solar powered brick oven fabrication and performance evaluation with three window/
screen materials (Glass, Perspex & Aluminum) has been proposed by[10]. Temperature profile
of the baking chamber within and outside was measured both with and without the load.
Therefore, the performance of the oven observed was 16%, 63% & 51% for aluminum, glass and
Perspex screened oven respectively. Experimental and CFD numerical analyses of an air-forced
convection rotary bread-baking oven has been presented by[2]. Several scholars reported on
CFD modeling, kinetics of baking process and optimization of conventional bread baking oven
which depends on non-renewable energy sources[1], [3], [6], [11] . However, their research
mainly focuses on heat and mass transfer phenomena during baking process and little attention
paid for solar thermal bread baking systems.

Apart from the conventional methods (electric and fuel powered), the heat to the oven can also
be provided by a renewable energy source. Since, it is a thermal process, solar thermal energy
utilization would be the best option[12]. As stated by[7], [13] the baking temperature influences
the quality of the bread as well as its shelf life, making it unsuitable for extended periods. The
CFD analysis of solar thermal powered bread baking oven using parabolic trough collector by
Mishra, Ayushi [12] was without integrating thermal energy storage, and achieved baking
temperature of 168℃. Therefore, it is mandatory to integrate thermal energy storage, because
solar power fluctuation greatly affects bread quality which is main concern for bakers. Gafoor,
Abdul, et al., [14] developed solar thermal application for decentralized food baking using
Scheffler reflector technology and attained baking temperature of 180℃. Hailessilase Asfafaw et
al., [15] presented a solar thermal based direct baking and proves the possibility of baking in a
temperature range of 120-160℃ using aluminum plate as a baking pan.

Review of published literatures revealed records of quite advanced studies on experimental,

analytical, instrumental and numerical analysis of bread baking. Experimental studies are mainly
concentrated on measurements of temperature, volume expansion and moisture content at
various stages of baking. From different literature reviewed concluded that there were many
scholars and researchers deal about gas fired, direct solar bakers, electric powered bakers and
biomass-based bakery analysis, modelling and performance evaluations.

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To summarize, while reviewing published literatures the existing solar thermal bread baking
system have the following gaps:

 A PCM thermal storage was not integrated

 Only CFD analysis of the system has been presented
 Experimental testing was simulated using equivalent electric source
 Quality analysis of solar thermal baked bread was not performed

2.2 Bread Baking Technologies and Challenges

Conventionally the bread baking systems are either electric powered, biomass powered, and fuel

Powered for mass production. There are many technologies exist for bread baking systems,
relatively few exist for baking using a renewable energy source. These are; electric power baking
system, fossil fuel powered, biomass based (fire wood), and that of renewable energy sources
such as direct solar baking and recently solar thermal based baking systems.

i. Electric powered bakery

Electric oven are direct fired which have efficient heat distribution and results in higher energy
cost. An electrically powered bakery system depends solely on the grid system which has its own
drawbacks. The bakery consists of steel heating elements of different capacities on the top and
bottom surfaces of the oven. These generally work on natural convection phenomena for heat
transfer mechanism which also aids the moisture removal from the oven[1], [11]. The moisture
removal from the oven is a vital criterion in the bread making process. A definite amount of
moisture must be removed otherwise the bread would be hard from outside but wet on the inner
volume, which degrades the bread properties.

Generally, most of bread baking system in Ethiopia is based on electric powered and biomass
powered. An electrically powered bakery oven depends only on the grid system which has its
own drawbacks. In electric ovens, cooking time and quality are generally dependent on the

8
airflow in the oven. And also, a sudden power fluctuation and failure greatly affects the bread
quality which is undesirable to all bread products. Now a days the electric tariff is increasing by
more than hundred percent this year and two hundred by the coming year. This increases the
baking cost of bread and price of bread for consumers.

ii. Fuel Powered bread bakery

In a fuel powered bakery system, the combustion chamber is integrated with the baking chamber
itself. The forced air is circulated into the combustion chamber from the atmosphere, and then
the hot air along with the flue gases is sent to the baking cavity of the oven where the dough is
placed in trays. Convection is the dominating mode of energy transfer inside the baking oven.
Typical fuel powered bread bakery consumes 0.02 L of fuel per kg of bread making which would
be even more in case of electric bakery considering the transmission losses and everything
else[5][12]. Ganitha et, al.[16] Developed domestic gas fired oven and evaluate the performance
of baking process. The result observed a temperature of 180℃ with a baking time of 28min and
showing a better energy efficiency by minimizing energy lost, and baking time. An improved
heating system design of a novel gas-fired industrial tunnel ovens was developed and CFD
simulations have been used to model the fuel burner and baking chamber [17]. The result shows
that bread quality is highly sensitive to moisture content of the baking chamber, radiative and
convective heat flux incident on the dough surface.

Dual powered bread baking oven was developed which is possible to use alternative heat source
that of electricity and fuel (gas)[18]. It has two chambers where, the upper chamber is powered
by electricity while the lower chamber is powered by gas or biomass burner located outside the
baking chamber and having a performance of 95.2%. The main drawback fossil fuels used as
heat source emit harmful GHG to the environment after combustion and is the major concern of
world. The resource is also depleting and the increasing price needs to see alternative sustainable
energy source of the baking industry.

iii. Biomass powered bread bakery

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The working principle of biomass fire baking systems are similar to that of fuel powered one.
There is combustion chamber to burn large mass of biomass or wood and the fire and hot air sent
to the baking chamber through conduction, convection and radiation. Biomass dependent energy
sources leads to deforestation and cause for global warming. CFD simulation of the flow field in
biomass (wood) powered bakery ovens presented by [19] was used to describe the influence of
air circulation on rate of heat transfer and the quality of bread product. A CFD model was used
to examine the flow pattern of air flow by varying the velocity so as to simulate the change in
biomass combustion chamber of bakery oven. Hence, low velocity of hot air flow inside the
baking chamber implies better in baking processes. But at high velocity the temperature of the
oven decreases and it affects the effective thermal conductivity and recirculation of hot gasses in
the baking room[19]. Fabião Armando Manhiça et, al. [20] studied the analysis of wood fired
bakery ovens baking process and their wood consumption. Wood consumption and analysis of
bread baking process in wood fired bakery ovens was studied by many scholars. Thus, according
to [20] the specific fire wood consumption of both indirect and semi direct bakery oven was
found to be 0.55kg and 0.90kg of wood per kg of wheat flour baked respectively.
The main challenges of biomass-based bread baking system are health risks due to incomplete
burning of biomass, the rising cost and a cause for deforestation. This creates global warming
which is the one major trait of our planet. Due to the limited supply of electric power and the
above challenges of conventional bread bakeries it is critical to use solar thermal bread bakeries
as viable option.

iv. Solar powered bread baking system

There are two types of solar energy application for baking. These are direct solar baking and
indirect solar baking (solar thermal baking) systems. Direct solar bakeries are devices that bake
food when sun radiation is available. In this method solar energy is concentrated using high
concentration solar collector such as parabolic dish at one focal point and this energy is directly
sent to baking chamber [10]. But, indirect solar bakers enable indoor baking or under a shade,
where the user are not expose to direct solar radiation and can be found with or without thermal
storage. Here, thermal energy is extracted using the circulating heat transfer fluid and heat
exchanger mechanism together with thermal storage[12], [21].

10
The proposed solar thermal bread baking system uses concentrating solar collector as parabolic
dish to increase the temperature of the heat transfer fluid to the desired temperature. This hot
HTF is then sent to thermal storages via perfectly insulated piping’s and heat from the storage is
transferred to the bread dough compartment through modes of heat transfers. During baking
process, a combined heat and mass transfer occurs in the form of evaporation and condensation.
Direct solar baking is not an attractive technology for various reasons such us prolonged baking
time, safety of workers due to direct exposure to the sun, cloud cover and not suitable for indoor
baking as well. Solar thermal baking system is more preferable than direct solar baking system.
It is due to solar thermal systems are suitable for both indoor and outdoor baking and simplicity
in energy storage for cloudy days and night time[22]. Among different types of collectors
available

PCM thermal storages is dominating in solar thermal baking application, thus the main
challenging task is the charging and discharging process. Depending on the type of collector
used the storage is charged either through direct illumination or by the help of HTF. The
Scheffler collector and parabolic dish with secondary reflector (beam down reflector) can charge
their storage by direct illumination whereas parabolic dish and parabolic trough collectors can
charge their thermal storage by circulation of HTF using heat exchanger system.

2.3 Bread Quality Analysis

The quality of the bread produced depends largely on the amount of heat flux received by the
dough during the baking process. The most commonly used practice to achieve optimal results is
to bake the bread at a constant temperature. Uneven distribution of baking temperature and
fluctuations in the baking chamber often results in the dough being subjected to inconsistent heat
treatment. The effect of baking parameters on the quality of bread product was presented by [23]
and this includes temperature, baking time and airflow velocity inside the oven. Baking
temperature is the dominating parameter that affect the quality of the bread while baking process.
Its variation affects water activity of the dough directly which, in turn, determines the level of
microbial activity. The water content and its distribution determine quality attributes of the bread
such as softness of the crumb, crispness of the crust and shelf life. The study presented by [2],
[23] shows that increasing the velocity of the airflow inside the oven chamber increases the heat

11
flux to the bread dough. Lack of uniformity of the airflow of the oven chamber during baking
process results in non-uniformity of the bread quality.

Another parameter that influences the baking process is the baking time. Physico-chemical
changes that occur during the baking process such as gelatinization of starch and the browning
reaction, depend not only on temperature but also on baking time. It must be ensured that the
gelatinization and browning reactions have been completed if the baking time is to be reduced by
either increasing the airflow velocity or the baking temperature; otherwise, the quality of the
product may be reduced. Therefore, optimized operating conditions (baking parameters) in the
baking oven is required in order to minimize the energy consumption of baking and to have
quality bread. The most commonly used practice for baking system is to have constant
temperature and uniform air flow around the dough with shorter baking time as much as
possible. The end of bread baking process is known by sensory attributes such as color, texture
and flavor of the final product[24].

The quality of bread was measured qualitatively by softness, crispness, brownness, texture and
flavor. All these quality attributes are the result of a series of physical and chemical changes due
to simultaneous heat and mass transfer takes place in the raw dough during baking process.
Bread products are mainly evaluated based on mechanical measurement of quality attributes or
through sensory manner. Bread brownness (which ranges from pale yellow to dark brown color)
is mainly the result of the intensity of maillard reaction. Brownness is the color difference
between raw dough and bread sample which is directly proportional to the surface temperature
and baking time. According to the result presented by [13] the measured value of brownness
index ranges from an minimum value of 24.35 to a maximum value of 67.12. Another important
quality of bread is the degree of crispness which is directly related to the maximum force
required to break (penetrate) a bread sample by the texture analyzer. As reported by[13] the
maximum penetration force (loads) were in the range 27 g to 512 g and linearly mapped to a
crispness index from 0 to 1. Therefore, the main quality attributes such as brownness, color and
crispness are associated with the humidity and temperature distribution inside the product during
the baking processes. Bread volume expansion and weight loss is also the quality attributes of the
product to be observed during baking process. Volume expansion of the bread means the change
of product size which is caused by the increase in pressure in the dough due to the release of

12
water vapor and expansion of Co2 from yeast (baking powder). Weight loss is the result of
evaporation of water from the bread dough and 10-20% water vapor lost during a baking
process[6], [13].

2.4 Solar Energy Collectors

Solar energy collectors are special kinds of heat exchangers that transform solar radiation energy
to internal energy of the heat transfer fluid and the major component of any solar system. It is a
device that absorbs the incoming solar radiation, converts it into heat, and transfers the heat to a
working fluid flowing through the collector. This thermal energy (heat) collected is carried from
the working fluid to a thermal energy storage tank, from which it can be discharged for use at
night, on cloudy days and as required[25], [26].

Solar energy collectors can be classified as non-concentrating (stationary) and concentrating (sun
tracking) collectors. Non-concentrating collectors has the same area for intercepting and
absorbing solar radiations and used for low temperature applications. Concentrating solar
collector usually has concave reflecting surfaces to intercept and focus the sun’s beam radiation
to a smaller receiving area, thereby increasing the concentration ratio (radiation flux). These
collectors are suitable for high-temperature applications. Among concentrating collector types
parabolic dish and parabolic trough collectors are suitable and applicable for solar thermal bread
baking system. Thus, only these two types of solar concentrators are discussed in this section.

Parabolic Trough Collectors

Parabolic trough collectors focus direct solar radiation onto a focal line on the collector axis. To
deliver high temperatures with good efficiency a high-performance solar collector is required.
Systems with light structures and low-cost technology for process heat applications up to 400℃
could be obtained with parabolic trough collectors (PTCs). PTCs can effectively produce heat at
temperatures between 50℃ and 400℃ [25].

13
 Figure 2.1 Schematic of a parabolic trough collector[25].

Parabolic Dish Reflectors

A parabolic dish reflector is a point-focus collector that tracks the sun in two axes,
concentrating solar energy onto a receiver located at the focal point of the dish. The dish
structure must fully track the sun to reflect the beam into the thermal receiver. For this purpose,
two axis tracking mechanisms are employed. Parabolic dish systems can achieve temperatures in
excess of 1500℃ [25]. PDRs have several important advantages [25]:

 The most efficient of all collector systems because they are always pointing to the sun.
 Have concentration ratios in the range of 600 to 2000 and thus are highly efficient at
thermal-energy absorption and power conversion systems.
 They are modular collector and receiver units that can function either independently or as
part of a larger system of dishes.

14
 Figure 2.2 schematic diagram of parabolic dish reflector [25]
One main disadvantage of concentrating collectors is that, except at low concentration ratios,
they can use only the direct (beam) component of solar radiation, because the diffuse and the
ground reflected component cannot be captured by concentrating solar collectors such as
parabolic dish and parabolic trough.

It is well-known in literature that, sun tracking systems are usually categorized in one-axis or
two-axis tracking systems, including mechanical or electrical devices. As noted by [25]
[26]single axis tracking systems are considerably cheaper and easier to construct, but their
efficiency is lower than that of two-axis sun tracking systems. Thus, parabolic dish reflector is
preferred over the other types of concentrating collectors for this application due to its higher
efficiency.

2.5 Thermal Energy Storage

Thermal energy Storage is essential to any system that depends largely on solar energy. Since,
energy storage adjusts temporal mismatches between the load and the intermittent or variable
energy source, thereby improving the system operability and utility. Basically, there are three

15
main types of thermal energy storage techniques used in solar thermal system. These are
Sensible heat storage, latent heat storage and thermochemical energy storage[27], [28].

The desired properties while selecting a thermal energy storage includes:

 High energy density (per-unit mass or per-unit volume) in the storage material
 Good thermal properties
 Mechanical and chemical stability of storage material
 Compatibility between storage material, HTF and other materials
 Complete reversibility for a large number of charging/discharging cycles or prolonged
use
 Minimum thermal Losses
 Minimal cost.

Figure 2.3: methods of thermal energy storage

Table 2.1: Typical parameters of thermal energy storage methods[29]

Type Storage Power (MW) Efficiency (%) Storage period

capacity (kwh/t)
Sensible heat storage 10-15 0.001-10 50-90 Day/month
Latent heat storage (PCM) 50-150 0.001-1 75-90 Hour/month
Chemical storage 120-250 0.01-1 75-100 Hour/ day

16
Sensible Heat Storage (SHS)

Sensible heat storage materials are defined as a group of materials which undergo no change in
phase over the temperature range encountered in the storage process. The ability to store sensible
thermal energy for a given material depends strongly on the (density and heat capacity), the
thermal capacity of the material. For a material to be useful in a thermal energy storage
application, it must be inexpensive and have good thermal capacity. Another important
parameter in sensible thermal energy storage is the rate at which that heat can be released and
extracted. This characteristic is function of the thermal diffusivity. The material here can be a
liquid or a solid[27], [30]. Hence, the storage capacity of sensible heat storage material is given
by;

T2 T2

Qs   mC p dT   VC p dT
T1 T1
(2.1)

Where, m is mass of the storage material

 ,V  are density and volume of the storage material respectively

The most commonly used sensible heat storage materials for low and medium temperature
application are water, organic oils, rocks, ceramics and molten salts[31]. The list of sensible heat
storage materials with their respective physical properties and energy density was presented from
table 3-A of appendix.

Latent Heat Storage (LHS)

Latent heat storage is storage of thermal energy by phase change materials (PCM) through a
phase transition from one state of matter to another. This phase change transition may have
different forms as solid-solid, liquid-gas, and solid-liquid states. For this solar thermal
application, the phase transition most studied for latent heat storage system is between the solid
and liquid states due to its low volumetric expansion compared to liquid-gas phase transition and
high volumetric energy density compared to solid-solid phase transition. The material
undergoing the phase change in a latent heat storage system is commonly referred to PCM.

Thus, the storage capacity of a phase change material thermal energy storage for temperature
change from T1 to T2, is the sum of the sensible heat change of the solid (the lower temperature

17
phase) fromT1 to T, the latent heat at T, and the sensible heat of the liquid (the melt, or higher
temperature phase) from T toT2:

Q  m C p , s  Tm  Ts   am   C p ,l  Tl  Tm  
(2.2)

Where, m is the mass of the storage material

C p , s C p ,l 
, are the average specific heat capacities of solid and liquid phases respectively

  is the latent heat of phase transition

am  is the fraction of PCM melted

Tm  is the temperature of melting of PCM

Ts  is the temperature of solid phase of PCM

Tl  is the temperature of liquid phase of PCM

Storage systems based on phase change materials with solid–liquid transition is considered to be
an efficient alternative to sensible thermal storage systems. From an energy efficiency point of
view, PCM storage systems have the advantage that they operate with small temperature
differences between charging and discharging. Furthermore, these storages have high energy
densities compared to sensible heat storages. The development of effective thermal energy
storage systems using PCM is increasing the interest, due to the potential improvement in energy
efficiency, storing and releasing thermal energy at nearly constant temperature. But most PCM
have low thermal conductivity, and that leads to slow charging and discharging rates[27], [30].

Some of the common PCM used for latent heat storage are paraffin waxes, non paraffins,
inorganic salts (both hydrated and anhydrous), and eutectics mixture of organic and or inorganic
compounds. Thus, inorganic salts and salt eutectics as well as metals and metallic alloys are
promising candidates as PCM due to their high density, high heat capacity, low vapor pressure,
and low viscosity. PCMs store 5–14 times more heat per unit volume than sensible storage
materials such as water, masonry, or rock[28].

18
Table 2.2: Thermo-physical properties of some inorganic PCMS[27]

PCM Melting Latent Density Specific Thermal

temperature ℃ heat kJ/kg kg/m3 heat kJ/kg.k conductivity
w/m.k
NaNo3/KNo3 (60%:40%) 223 142.2 1899 2.351(s) 2.272(s)
NaNo3 306 172 2261 1.1(s) 0.5(s)
KNo3 335 95 2109 0.953 0.5

While comparing the melting points solar salt with 60% NaNo3 and 40% KNo3 mixture has the
lowest melting point. The nitrate salts are commonly used for latent heat storage coupled with
solar energy. A prototype of this salt as heat storage using with direct solar heating has been
tested[30]. Nitrate salts are chosen for the storage, due to their heat capacity, easy availability
and manipulation, and low cost. To optimize the heat conduction, aluminum chips was added
due to its high heat conductivity and reasonable price and weight.

Thermochemical Energy Storage

In thermochemical energy storage systems energy can be stored as heat of reaction in reversible
chemical reactions. In this mode of storage, the reaction in the forward direction is endothermic
(storage of heat), while the reverse reaction is exothermic (release of heat). Since, Chemical
reaction is highly energetic process a large amount of heat can be stored in a small quantity of a
material.

A  H  B  C (2.3)

The amount of stored in this chemical reaction depends on heat of reaction and the extent of
conversion. Thus, the amount of heat stored Q is given by the relation;

Q  f r mH (2.4)

Where, m  the mass of reactants

f r  The fraction of reacted

19
 H  Heat of reaction per unit mass

It is necessary that the chemical reactions involved are completely reversible for thermochemical
energy storage. The heat produced by the solar receiver is used to excite an endothermic
chemical reaction. If this reaction is completely reversible the heat can be recovered completely
by the reversed reaction.

2.5 Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF)

Heat transfer fluids serve as collection and transport of heat from solar absorbers to the storage
tank. It is the most important part of any solar system which extracts heat from solar collector.
This section discusses about heat transfer fluid, which is one of the critical components for
storing and transferring thermal energy in concentrating solar systems. Heat transfer fluid is used
to transfers the thermal energy delivered by the solar collector to the thermal energy storage
system. There are various HTF available and used for solar thermal systems such as air, water,
thermal oils, molten salts and liquid metals but thermal oils and molten salts are the more
dominant HTFs[32].

Selection criteria of HTF includes[32], [33];

 Extended working temperature range and high thermal stability,

 Good thermal conductivity is desired for efficient heat transfer,
 Low viscosity is beneficial to pressure drop,
 large heat capacity would allow for direct thermal storage,
 Low vapor pressure,
 Low hazard properties and good material compatibility,

Water

Water was used as heat transfer fluid for single fluid direct steam generator solar thermal
systems. Even if it has high heat capacity, low viscosity, cannot used for high temperature
application and used for direct steam generation systems.

Table 2.3: Advantages and Disadvantages of water as HTF

Advantages Disadvantages
 Inexpensive, non-toxic, non-combustible  Superheated steam at high temperature
20
 and widely available
 High specific heat and high density
 Simultaneous charging and discharging of
the storage tank is possible
 Highly corrosive
 Working temperatures are limited to less
than 100°C and suitable only for direct
steam generation solar systems

Molten salts

As compared to water and thermal oils, the molten-salts are excellent heat transfer fluids. This is
due to molten salts have high density, high heat capacity, high thermal stability (> 500℃), and
very low vapor pressure even at elevated temperatures[33]. Another important property of
molten salts is the avoidance of the fire and contamination hazards due to leaks of thermal oil in
piping and vessels, because molten salts currently used (binary mixture of potassium nitrate and
sodium nitrate) have been traditionally used by farmers as fertilizer. Furthermore, when molten
salt is poured onto the ground it freezes immediately and remains as a thick solid film that can be
easily recovered and reused, thus avoiding the high decontamination costs associated with oil
leakages on ground[33]. Solar Salts have high melting point usually above 200℃ which results
in freezing in pipelines when there is no solar energy during the night and cloudy time. Using
molten salt have higher efficiency than oils, but it has high freezing problem and needs a freeze
protection system, which increases the operation and maintenance cost[34].

Thermal oils

Thermal oils such as mineral oil, silicone oil, and synthetic oils have been used in concentrated
solar thermal system applications as heat transfer fluids[33]. These thermal oils are not
commonly used for high temperature solar thermal applications. This is due to the fact that these
oils can be thermally stable only up to 400℃ and also highly expensive. Thermal oil has low
viscosity and good flow properties so that can be circulated easily with low pumping power.

21
Table 2.4: Typical heat transfer fluids used for solar thermal systems[21], [36], [24]

Type Operating Density Thermal conductivity Specific heat

Temperature ℃ (kg/m3) (kJ/kg.℃)
(W/m.℃)
Therminol VP-1 12-400 900 0.11 2.3
Shell Thermia oil B -18-320 868 0.12 2.6
Molten salt 250-500 1870 0.52 1.6

Fluids capable of operating at high temperatures with low vapor pressure are commonly used as
heat transfer fluid in solar thermal systems. Shell Thermia oil B was highly refined mineral oil
chosen for its best performance in indirect closed fluid heat transfer systems. Shell Thermia oil B
have high heat transfer coefficient, low viscosity, and low vapor pressure, non-toxic, non-
corrosive and easy for disposal than synthetic oils. Due to its relatively greater cost, Therminol
VP-1 could not be used as heat transfer fluid. Thus, due to the above reasons shell Thermia oil B
was used as heat transfer fluid for this application.

22
 3. Materials and Methods

3.1 Materials
Materials used to construct the experimental setup were selected based on local availability and
cost effectiveness. The main materials used were presented below.

 Aluminum sheet: it was used for constructing the baking plate and cover of the setup.
 Aluminum foil: it was used for fabrication of reflector surface of the parabolic dish reflector
system by using adhesive tape (mastish).
 Copper pipe: it was selected due to its higher thermal conductivity. Used for fabrication of
spiral coil absorber and spiral coil heat exchanger inside the storage section.
 Stainless steel sheet: due to its corrosion resistance property at high temperature, used for
construction of storage container walls.
 Glass wool: it serve as insulation medium for oil transportation pipe, because of its better
thermal insulation property and suitability of fabrication at any orientation of the pipe.
 Wood ash: it serves as insulation material for storage and baking unit, due to its better
thermal insulation property and local availability with free of cost.
 Solar salt: it is an eutectic mixture of 60% sodium nitrate (NaNo 3) and 40% potassium
nitrate (KNo3) and serve as thermal storage medium due to its better thermal properties.
 Galvanized steel pipe: used for HTF circulation from cold storage tank to the solar collector
and then to the thermal storage unit.
 Shell Thermal oil: used for heat transfer fluid due to its better thermophysical properties.
 Circulation pump: low flow pump from used food process laboratory was installed.

Measuring Instruments

 Thermocouples: were used for measuring the temperature profile at various section of the
baking system different stage of baking and the daily ambient temperature variation.

23
 Infrared Thermometer: used for measuring the temperature of flowing HTF inside the
circulation pipe which was difficult to measure simply by thermocouple.
 Solar Meter: used for recording the daily beam/ direct solar irradiance of the test site.
 Weight Balance: used for measuring the weight of the dough and weight (difference) loss of
bread sample after baking.

3.2 Methods

3.2.1 Solar Thermal Bread Baking System Description

Solar thermal bread baking system uses solar radiation as the source of energy. Solar energy is
collected and converted to usable heat using parabolic dish reflector. A parabolic dish
concentrator is used to collect incoming solar radiation and increased the temperature of oil
which circulates in the receiver. Heat transfer Oil pumped from the oil storage tank carries heat
as it circulates around the spiral coil receiver. This extracted thermal energy is sent to the thermal
storage via perfectly insulated piping. The heat transfer fluid (oil) also circulates through spirally
coiled copper pipe inside the cylindrical storage tank (shell) and gives off heat to the PCM
thermal storage. So that baking was performed directly over the top of thermal storage tank using
aluminum plate which attached to the PCM.
Shell Thermia oil B was used as heat transfer fluid (HTF) over the other since molten salts have
greater freezing problems and water is super- heated steam at high temperature which is difficult
to store and handle. Due to its high thermal energy storage capacity phase change material
(PCM) is used as thermal storage type. A removable well insulated cover made of glass wool,
wood ash and aluminum foil was used to prevent heat loss from the storage section via baking
plate during charging. A spiral copper tube coil is placed at the focus of the parabola in order to
receive the heat. The circulation pump used adjusts flow rate of thermal oil circulating so that no
need of flow meter and opening /closing valve in the system installation. Clouds does not
interfere the baking process, as the baking energy is extracted directly from the storage.

The experimental setup of solar thermal bread baking system is shown in the figure 3.1 and its
main components includes;

A-Parabolic dish concentrator B- Spiral coil receiver

24
 C-Piping lines F-Reservoir

D- Dish stand with manual tracking G- PCM thermal storage

E- Flow pump H- Baking plate

Figure 3.1 Solar thermal bread baking system setup

Design specifications

The subject of this study is modeling and experimental testing of solar thermal bread baking
system. The capacity of the bread baking system is directly proportional to the number of breads
baked per day and baking plate dimensions that means size of the baking plate and the dough
weight.

 For this analysis the average weight of bread dough (for Difo Dabo) considered was 2kg
from the data taken at small scale bakeries interview.
 The time required for baking one batch of bread was 25-30minutes for conventional
baking system and 30-60 minutes for solar thermal based baking[37].
 The required baking plate surface temperature for bread baking lies in the range of 180℃
-220℃ but, also there is a possibility of baking up to temperature of 160℃[5], [6][15].
 The ambient temperature has to be 25℃ throughout this analysis.

25
  The flow is considered to be laminar flow since solar thermal systems work on low fluid
flow to maximize the heat gain of the fluid at the absorber pipe.

3.2.2 Design of Solar Thermal Bread Baking System

3.2.2.1 Energy Required for Bread Bakery
Bread baking requires intensive energy and this energy is necessary to raise the dough to a
particular temperature, and evaporate the amount of water that is to be lost during the baking
process. Thus, to find the energy required in bread baking, the initial mass of dough, and the
mass of bread after baking were determined. The mass of water vapor can be the difference
between the mass of the bread product and the initial mass of dough.

Bread baking is an energy-intensive process due to water evaporation occurring in the product
(e.g. latent heat of water vaporization is 2.26 MJ/kg at 100℃) [24]. It is assumed that the energy
utilized in bread baking is the energy required in raising the temperature of the dough from room
temperature to the boiling point of water which is called sensible heat, plus the energy required
to evaporate water which is called latent heat. It is also assumed that the heat capacity of dough
is the same as that of water in order to calculate the energy required to raise the dough
temperature to boiling point.

Qreq  mdough  C pw   Tb  T    mdough  mbread  hv

(3.1)

mdough 
Where, is the mass of the dough before baking per batch=2kg

mbread  is the mass of bread after baking per day

Tb  is the boiling temperature of water = 100℃

C pw 
is the heat capacity of water=4.18kJ/kg.℃

T 
is the ambient temperature, ℃

hv  is the heat of vaporization of water =2.26MJ/kg

26
The required energy becomes, Q req =1350.2KJ

Mass loss of the dough after baking process is estimated to be 16% of the initial mass)[7].The
time required for baking one bread is 40 minutes at 220℃ baking plate surface temperature[3].
Thus power required for one cycle of baking becomes 0.563kW.

The amount of energy required for heating up a baking plate (1mm thick aluminum sheet) to a
plate temperature of 220℃ is given by;

Qplate  m plate  C p , plate   Tp , f  Tp ,i 

(3.2)

C p , plate 
Where, Specific heat capacity of aluminum sheet plate =.0.888kJ/kg.℃

T p ,i 
Initial plate temperature, ℃

Tp , f 
Final plate temperature, ℃

m plate 
Mass of baking plate is

Therefore, the energy required to heat the baking plate to the desired temperature could be
235KJ. Then, the time taken to heat the baking plate to the desired temperature is 10minutes.
Thus, the power required for heating baking plate becomes 0.39kw.

Now, the total energy required for bread baking is energy required for boiling and vaporization
of water in the dough plus energy required for initial heat up the baking plate to the desired plate
temperature. Total energy supplied for four cycles of baking could be 6340.8KJ and the rate of
this energy becomes 3.9KW. And thus, adding 10% for various heat losses during a baking
process the total energy required becomes 6974.8KJ with the corresponding rate of energy
4.29KW.

3.2.2.2 Design of Thermal Energy Storage System

Material selection

Main important properties of thermal storage container material includes[38];

 Good mechanical properties such as strength, creep and thermal fatigue resistance

27
  A high degree of chemical compatibility between the container material and PCM salt
 Excellent corrosion resistance at high temperature

For solar salt (60wt%NaNO3/40wt%KNO3) PCM storage corrosion resistance of stainless steels
is better than that of carbon steels and other metals. Since, Stainless steel is an alloy of iron
carbon and chromium, as it exposed to solar salt, chromium oxide layer is formed on the surface
of the tank wall which prevents the material from corrosion. Thus, due to this stainless steel was
used as PCM storage tank material for long-term utilization solar energy. The compatibility of
storage tank material depends on corrosion rate of metals as presented in the table below.

Table 3.1: Corrosion rate of PCM storage tank materials[39][40]

Material Melting point (℃) 2

Rate of corrosion ( mg / cm . yr )
Stainless steel 1400-1455 0.3004
Aluminum 660.4 0.9423
Copper 1085 10.9869

The intermittent nature of solar energy needs thermal energy storage systems for baking bread in
door and non-sunny days. In this section, the overall design of solar thermal storage system to
bake bread for one baking session of average family size starting from the selection of material
for storage medium, volume, material for tank discussed.

While, selecting appropriate PCM energy storage for any solar system the phase transition
temperature of the material must be near to the operating temperature. The latent heat of phase
change should be as high as possible on volumetric basis on order to minimize the size of the
storage unit. A high specific heat is required to provide additional sensible heat storage capacity.
Enhanced thermal conductivity is also desired to improve charging and discharging process and
to have uniform temperature distribution inside the storage unit.

The thermal energy storage selected as PCM to store heat was a molten salt with mixture of
sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate also called solar salt with percentage of (NaNO 3 - KNO3)
60% -40% respectively. It melts at 220℃ and remains in thermally stable liquid phase at
temperatures up to 600℃.

28
 Figure 3.2: Eutectics mixture of NaNo3 (60%wt) and KNo3 (40%wt) solar salt
Heat transfer enhancement Methods

Metals with high thermal conductivity were integrated with the PCMs storage so as to increase
the heat transfer between the PCM and the HTF and also to the baking plate. Therefore, it
increase the performance of the storage system as well as the bread baking. Based on application,
storage material selection depends on its thermal conductivity, density, cost, and corrosion
properties.

The main drawbacks of most latent heat storage materials were;

 Low thermal conductivity

 Thermal stability

Low thermal conductivity PCMs greatly affects the rate of heat charging and discharging. To
address this effect using extended metal surfaces (fins), highly conductive metal matrices,
conductive metal powders (chips) and micro-encapsulation are proven to be effective in
enhancing heat transfer properties of PCM.

Using highly conductive metal powder (chips)

29
It has been noted that the major challenges of using solar salt (60%NaNo3:40%KNo3) as thermal
storage material is its low thermal conductivity. Hence, adding small percentages by volume of
metallic powder or chips such as copper, graphite, aluminum, silver and other highly conductive
materials can increase its thermal conductivity[41]. Due to the cost and availability of material
aluminum chips was used as additive for this analysis. Therefore, in this system 10% mass
fraction aluminum chips was used to enhance the heat transfer properties of PCM so that the
charging and discharging time of the PCM was reduced and the useful heat gain of the system
increased. The thermal conductivity of the PCM and the additive metal chips mixture composite
was estimated using a simple model based on mixing rule and given by the relation[42]:

n n n
( K m ) =φ ( K a ) + ( 1−φ ) ( K s ) (3.3)

Where; K m, K a & K s , thermal conductivity of the mixture, additive and solar salt respectively

n=1, for parallel combination rules of mixing

V additive
φ- Volume concentration of the additive (aluminum chips) and given by; φ=
V s +V additive

Table 3.2: Thermophysical properties of the mixture (solar salt +aluminum chips)

Property Unit Aluminum Solar salt Mixture

Density [Kg/m3] 2700 1899 1971.8
Melting temperature [℃] - 220 220
Latent heat of fusion [KJ/Kg] - 142.2 142.2
Thermal conductivity [W/m℃] 237 2.272(s) 23.6
Specific heat capacity [KJ/Kg℃ 0.888 2.351(s) 2.22
]

30
Figure 3.3: Aluminum chips additive (left) and mixture of solar salt with aluminum chips (right)
Determining the Temperature of Hot PCM in the Storage Tank

Heat transfer in a media occurs whenever there is a temperature difference between them. When
a temperature gradient exists in a solid (or stationary liquid) medium the modes of heat transfer
is by conduction due to random atomic or molecular activity but, modes of heat transfer between
solid surface and moving fluid is termed as convection. In addition, heat transfer processes that
involve phase change are considered to be convection due to the fluid motion induced during
phase transformation. That means the expansion of PCM during heating and degradation during
condensation (cooling)[43]. Therefore, energy transfer from the hot PCM salt to the baking plate
was through convection and conduction.

► Natural convection from hot PCM to top tank cover plate

► Conduction from the inner wall to the outer wall of baking plate (cover)

Assumptions to determine the temperature of the solar salt by an iterative procedure includes;

 Steady state conditions

 One dimensional heat transfer (from the hot salt solution to baking plate)
 The baking plate surface temperature T 3=¿220℃
 Negligible heat loss from the bottom and sides of the storage tank (well-insulated wall)

31
Figure 3.4: Energy transfer from Hot PCM to baking plate surface and its thermal network
Now, the rate of heat transfer from the hot molten salt solution energy storage to the baking plate
is given by the relation [26];

T 1−T 3
Q̇=
1 t (3.4)
( + 1
hA K 1 A )
Where, Q̇−¿ power required to bake bread (Difo Dabo), 4.29kw

T1  the required temperature of hot PCM salt solution, ℃

T2  the storage top cover (baking plate) inner wall temperature, ℃

T3  the desired baking plate surface temperature, ℃

K 1−¿ the thermal conductivity of aluminum baking plate, w/m℃

t 1−¿the thickness of storage tank top cover (baking plate), m

Convective heat transfer coefficient (h) is expermentally determined parameter thus it is not
aproperty of the fluid. It depends on the surface geometry, the nature of fluid motion, the
properties of the fluid, and the bulk fluid velocity. Before determining the convective heat
transfer coefficient, the average Nusselt number, the Rayleigh number and Prandtl number must
be known first.

Hence, the empirical correlations for the average Nusselt number (Nu) to find natural convection
heat transfer coefficent over the surface is given by[32];

32
 hLc
Nu   0.27 Ra1 4
k 105  Ra  1011 (3.5)

The dimensionless Rayleigh number (Ra) for natural convection between the hot fluid and the
plate is given by [43];

gB  T1  T  L3c
Ra 
v (3.6)

Where, g  is the gravitational acceleration, 9.81m/s2

B  is volume thermal expansion of the solution

T1  is the hot PCM salt solution temperature and assumed to be 290℃ for the first
iteration

T  is the ambient temperature, ℃

v  is kinematic viscosity

  is the thermal difusivity

Lc  is the effective characteristics length, m

The correlation for thermophisical properties of solar salt in its liquid state as a function
temperature was given in table 4-A of appendix. Thus, having the thermophisical properies of
salt and iterative procuder using equations 3.4-3.6 hot PCM salt temperature becomes 287℃.

Determining the volume of PCM: In order to know the volume of energy storage required for
bread baking per day the mass of PCM storage was determined from total energy required or the
storage capacity of salt as follows;

QPcm  m C p , s  Tm  Ts   am   C p ,l  Tl  Tm  
(3.7)

Where, m the required mass of the PCM storage material

  the latent heat of phase transition of 60%NaNo3/40%KNo3 mixture, kJ/kg

33
 Tm  the melting temperature of PCM, ℃

Ts  the temperature of PCM in solid phase, ℃

Tl  the temperature of PCM in liquid phase, ℃

C p , s C p ,l 
, the average heat capacities of solid and liquid phase respectively, kJ/kg.℃

am 
the fraction of salt melted, assuming all salts are melted =1

Then the volume of PCM storage is the ratio of mass to density of salt storage.

m
Volume of PCM salt required, V salt =
ρsalt

It has been well known that heat transfer rates in spiral coils are higher than that of a straight
pipe. Due to the compact structure and high heat transfer coefficient, spiral coil pipes are widely
used in thermal storage application. spiral coiled pipe is the best choice in some cases[44], [45];

 Where space is limited thus, no enough space to use straight pipes

 Under conditions of laminar flow or low flow rates where a shell and tube heat exchanger
is not economical due to the resulting low heat transfer coefficient
 Where the pressure drop of the fluid is limited

Since, baking is performed on the top of PCM storage container the diameter of the storage
container was 42 cm (2 cm higher than that of the baking plate) and the coil outer turn diameter
was Doc =¿36cm. The number of turns of spiral coils was determined from the diameter of outer
most turn of spiral coiled tube, clearance, coil tube diameter, and giving 50mm inner diameter to
avoid pipe deformation during heating.
Doc - Dic
N= ¿ (3.8)
2× ( c+ d c ¿

Therefore, length of the spiral coiled pipe also be determined using the relation:

π R 2oc
Lc = (3.9)
c+ d c

34
 π 2 -3 3
The volume occupied by the coil, V c = dc Lc = 0.226×10 m
4
Where, the outer diameter of hard annealed copper helical coil tube is taken to be 8mm with wall
thickness of 0.8mm which is available from the market. So that, the volume of the thermal
storage container is the sum of volume of the solid thermal storage material required and the
volume occupied by the spirally coiled tube. Vs = Vpcm + Vc =3.7×10 -3 m 3
But, it is necessary to account the thermal expansion of molten salt and the thermal degradation
to determine the actual volume of energy storage required. Thermal expansion is property of a
material that expands upon heating, and used to describe the change in volume when the
temperature of the material changed. It has units of reciprocal of temperature (℃)-1. For isotropic
materials the volume thermal expansion coefficient is three times the linear coefficient of

thermal expansion and for solar salt its value presented as   51.3 10 C and thus, the
6 o 1

corresponding thermal expansion was

 v  3  1.539 10 4 oC 1 [46].

This Volume change with temperature is given by;

∆ V =V α v ∆ T (3.10)

Where, V  the volume change after heating

V  the original volume before heating

 v  the volume thermal expansion coefficient of PCM

T  the change in temperature of PCM

Due to the volumetric thermal expansion during heating of the phase change material a free
space of 4% is provided from the volume of PCM container.

The PCM thermal storage is modeled as spiral coil and shell heat exchanger type as shown in the
figure below. It is simple and easy to fabricate from locally available material. Spirally wound
copper coil is inserted along the axis of cylindrical storage tank (shell) and the hot HTF heats
PCM storage. The tank (shell) is well insulated so as to avoid the heat loss to the surrounding.

35
The temperature of the HTF coming from the collector to the storage tank must be greater than
the temperature of the salt inside the storage to prevent back flow of heat.

Figure 3.5: Schematic diagram of PCM thermal storage cross section

The hot oil coming from the collector cools down as it passes through the spiral copper coils.
The heat lost from the hot oil is the same as the heat transfer through the copper pipes.
Metrological data shows that the average sunshine hour of Bahir Dar was eight hours. Taking six
effective bright sunshine hours of operation of the solar collector, the daily energy demand was
6974.8KJ per six hour and thus useful thermal power considered to be 323J/sec.
The outlet temperature of the collector, which determines the useful gain for the collector, is
higher than the temperature at which the heat is finally used by the load and the sum of a series
of temperature drops during transportation. Thus, the objective of solar thermal system and
thermal storage design, is to minimize these temperature drops within economic constraints[26].
Applying energy balance to the spiral coiled heat exchanger and the heat transfer theory lead to
the following equation concerning the thermal power the HTF gives to the PCM.

36
 .

Q  UA  T f  Tpcm 
(3.11)

Here, the overall heat transfer area, considered has to be the external surface area of the coiled
pipe[47]. In order to know the storage inlet temperature the overall heat transfer coefficient has
to be determined first[47].

1
Uo=
d
1
+
( )
d i ln o
di
+
di
(3.12)

hf kp d o h pcm

hf
Where, - is the convective heat transfer coefficient of the HTF

hPCM - is the convective heat transfer coefficient of the PCM salt

kp
- is the thermal conductivity of the spiral coiled copper pipe wall material, 399 W m.k

d o, d i are the external and internal diameter of the coiled pipe 8mm, 6.4mm respectively

The only unknown in the above relation was the convective heat transfer coefficients of both
HTF and PCM salt for flow along a spiral coiled pipe & can be determined through iterative
procedure using the relation noted in appendix. Therefore, according to equation 3.11 and
equation 3.12 the average storage inlet HTF temperature becomes T f =280 ℃. The required rate
of thermal energy that the HTF needs to provide depends on the mass flow rate of oil, the
specific heat capacity and temperature gradient of the fluid. Since the required thermal energy
rate is known previously, the mass flow rate oil becomes;

Q̇
ṁ = ṁ=0.00049 kg /s
Cp ∆T
It is important to note that no matter what thermal storage approach is applied, the mass flow rate
of the HTF must satisfy the useful energy equation stated above in order to deliver the desired
thermal power. Therefore, the mass flow rate of the HTF is independently decided, regardless of

37
the thermal storage approach[35]. And then the volume flow rate heat transfer oil is given by;

ṁ
q= q=5.6× 10-7 m 3 /s =0.0336L/min
ρ
Thus, the mean velocity of oil with in the spirally coiled pipe flow becomes 0.0174m/s

Figure 3.6. Spiral coiled copper pipe (a) and solar salt filled inside the storage container (b)
3.2.3 Piping System Design and selection
Performance of the any solar thermal system depends on the pipe diameter used for transporting
heat transfer fluid from the collector to the storage tank. There are two contradictory effects,
which are dependent on diameter of the pipe. One of them is the heat loss to ambient, which
varies directly with variation in diameter. Another effect is the pumping power required to
circulate the fluid, which increases as diameter is decreased. These two contradicting effects lead
to the existence of an optimal pipe diameter for a given system.

Material selection

Materials selection for both hot and cold pipe systems needs to consider important properties for
the desired application. The pipe material must be compatible with the HTF and can withstand
the operating conditions of temperature and pressure. Thus, galvanized steel pipes are more
recommended for both cold and hot oil piping applications due to the following properties:

 high corrosion resistance

 low thermal conductivity
 rigid and can withstand high temperature steam

38
  economical

Hot oil pipe is used to transfer hot heat transfer fluid (thermal oil) from receiver outlet to thermal
storage. Sizing of a pipe involves the determining the diameter and thickness of the pipe. The
inside diameter of the pipe depends on the flow rate of the oil.

q  A V (3.13)

d2  Re
A V
But, 4 and d

Where,  –the density of hot oil at a temperature, kg/ m

3

 –the viscosity of hot oil at a temperature,

Re  the Reynolds number of hot oil for laminar flow, which is less than the critical
Reynolds number (Re =2300) for straight pipes

 d 2  Re
q  
4 d (3.14)

Now, after determining the inside diameter of the pipe, the thickness of the wall (t) is estimated
which can sustain the internal oil pressure.

Pd
t C
2 t , (3.15)

Where,
 t – is the allowable stress of pipe and,

C- is constant and considered as 3mm for steel pipes

Using the inside diameter and thickness of the pipe, the outer diameter of the pipe is determined
as; do=d+2t

Using the same relation as hot oil pipe design with the only difference is that physical properties
of oil evaluated at cold inlet temperature, the size of cold oil pipe was also selected. Since the
system uses low flow rate pump obtained from food process lab, the flow was considered to be

39
laminar. Due to this the diameter of pipe was too small and difficult to find from the market pipe
standards. Therefore, standard galvanized steel pipe with outer diameter of 9.525mm (3/8 inch)
and wall thickness of 1mm was used for both hot and cold oil transportation.

3.2.4 Determining Pressure loss and pump selection

Pressure drop or head loss is directly related to the power requirement of a pump to drive the
fluid. Thus, before selecting the size and type of circulation pump, it is necessary to determine
the major and the minor head losses expected to occur. The major head loss for flow along pipe
was based the Darcy–Weisbach formula;

L u2
hL = f (3.16)
d 2g

Where, d - the inside diameter of the pipe, m

u - the mean velocity of the oil, 0.0174m/s

L- the length of the pipe, 2m

f- friction factor or coefficient of line hydraulic resistance

64
f 
In case of laminar flow of fluids, the Darcy friction factor can be expressed as; Re

But, in most of the solar thermal energy applications, flow rate is very small and the Reynolds
number Re is less than 2300 which is considered as laminar flow. According to equation 3.20 the
major pipe loss becomes 0.0418m.

Other than straight circulation pipes the system comprises components such as, bends, sudden
expansion, and contraction. These components interrupt the smooth flow of oil and cause
additional pressure losses due to separation and mixing of flow. Thus, the relation for the minor
losses associated with these components is given by;

u2
hL = K L (3.17)
2g

Where, KL is the loss coefficient which is independent of the Reynolds number and has different

value for each component.

40
According to equation 3.17 there is only two sadden expansion and contraction pipe sections
responsible for the minor loss of 6.326×10−6m which is insignificant. For both laminar and
turbulent flow, as the diameter of the pipe decreases, the pressure drop increases. This increases
the burden on the pump which is circulating the fluid. For a given flow rate, higher power is
necessary to pump the fluid through a smaller diameter pipe.
Pressure drop along the spiral coil pipe
The swirling motion produced by coiling a tube increases the frictional pressure drop and the
average heat transfer coefficient compared with those in a straight pipe of the same total
(uncoiled) length. The pressure drop along spirally coiled pipe is found to be higher than that of
straight pipes for the same flow rate. The pressure drop along the spiral coil absorber pipe (ΔP)
can be estimated according to the following equation:

L   fm  U 2
P  f r
2 Dri
(3.18)

Where, U- the mean fluid velocity, m/s

L- length of the spiral coil, L

f r - the friction factor for the spiral coil tube ( f r  0.01228  Re0.261 )

Total head loss in a system is the sum of major losses along the pipe sections, the minor losses
and spiral coil pipe loss associated in the oil circulation system.
L L u2
(
H L,l = f
D
+f r + ∑ K L
D 2g ) (3.19)

Thus, according to equation 3.23 the total head loss of piping system becomes 0.0441m.
And the corresponding total pressure loss of the system becomes; ∆P total =ρgH L
Thus, according to equation 3.43 the pressure loss becomes, ∆P total =375.5pa.

Pumping power

Since it was difficult to find a small size pump with adjustable flow fitted with this application, a
low flow used pump from food processing lab was used which fits with the required flow

41
velocity of the oil. Once the head loss available in the system determined the useful power added
to the heat transfer fluid (oil) flowing is estimated using the relation;

P= ρg H l q (3.20)

Where, ρ - is the density of oil in kg/m3, g - is the gravitational acceleration (m/ s2), H -is the
head added to the flow in m and q - is the flow rate oil in m3/s.

The power source for pumping action of the HTF were through electrical means for this
demonstration purpose. But in practical situation the power source must be directly from sunlight
by solar PV system. Speed range of the pump is 1-100rpm and the corresponding output torque
2Nm. The flow rate of the pump (ml/min) =V t ×L×N×RPM

Where, V t is the volume of tubing included, L is the length of tubing included, N is the number
of rollers on the rotor (3 for this case), and RPM is the speed of the pump in revolution per
minute.

But for this analysis the flow rate was adjusted to be at 20rpm and the corresponding flow rate
was 33.6ml/min with continuous flow inside the loop.

Figure 3.7 Oil circulation pump from used food processing lab
3.2.5 Thermal Insulation Design
Thermal insulation is defined as a material or combination of materials which on application
retards the flow of heat and adapted to any size, shape and surface. The purpose of thermal
insulation in any solar system is to minimize the heat loss to the environment. Thus, a thermal
insulator is a material having poor conductor or very low thermal conductivity. The most

42
abundant insulation materials that can withstand high temperatures such as fiberglass (glass
wool), mineral wool, calcium silicate, foam glass, and firebricks[35].

Desired properties of insulating materials to be considered during the selection of insulation

materials includes;

 Low thermal conductivity,

 Non- corrosive,
 Non-toxic, non-flammable and
 exhibit little or no decomposition at long period of time

In addition, cost & structural considerations must be undertaken during of selection insulation
material. Here, insulation is required at various section of the system and these includes
circulation pipe, thermal storage tank, receiver back and storage tank cover insulation plate.

Table 3.3: Insulating materials with their thermal conductivity at room temperature

Material Thermal conductivity (w/m.℃)

Cork 0.048
Fiber glass/Glass wool 0.040
Foam 0.026
Wood ash 0.015

Glass wool insulation is made from recycled glass bottles, sand and other materials. Glass wool
is also called fiber glass insulation. Researches proved that the thermal insulation performance of
glass wool is not affected by high temperature and moisture condition.

43
 Figure 3.8. Glass wool insulation material
For this particular design, glass wool is used as insulating material for circulation pipe as well as
energy storage container due to the following important insulation properties;

 good thermal insulating properties,

 Low moisture-vapor permeability,
 high resistance to water absorption,
 high mechanical strength and low density
 Low cost and simplicity of installation.

The heat transfer rate from the circulation pipe or storage container to the environment is the
combined effect of conduction and convection loss. Thus, heat losses from the cylindrical pipe or
storage tank may increase or decrease, depending on which effect dominates. Therefore, the

44
critical radius of insulation depends on thermal conductivity of the insulation (k) material and the
convection heat transfer coefficient ( hair ) of external ambient air [43]..

K
r= r o + (3.21)
hair

Where, hair = 2.8+3V

K= 0.04w/m.k for pipe insulation and 0.015w/m.k for storage tank

However this benchmark (r=r cr) which is the indicator of maximum heat transfer, can still be
used to get information on the heat transfer characteristics with increase of insulation thickness.
For insulation thicknesses above the critical radius, heat transfer decreases with increase in
thickness of insulation. Thus, thickness of the insulation will be optimized with respect to the
cost of the insulation material and the saved energy cost. Thus, according to equation 3.27 the
thickness of insulation becomes 7.4mm, 2.8mm for oil pipe and storage tank respectively.

3.2.6 Parabolic Dish Concentrator Design

Material selection

Material selection for the reflector of dish is the most essential factors to be considered while
designing parabolic dish reflector for any solar thermal system. The reflectivity property of the
material of the concentrator highly affects the performance of the collector.

Table 3.4: Properties of typical reflector materials

Material Reflectivity (  ) Cost

Aluminum 85% Relatively low

Glass mirror 96% Relatively high

As presented in the table above glass has higher reflectivity but difficult during fabricating to the
desired parabolic shape. Due to the cost and ease of fabrication aluminum foil is used as reflector
material and aluminum sheet at the back of the reflector.

The design of solar collector begins with the sizing of the aperture area of the dish concentrator
required to reflect the incoming beam radiation to the focal point called receiver. The aperture

45
area of parabolic dish concentrator is determined from the relation of useful heat and solar
conversion efficiency as;

Qu
c 
GB Aa (3.22)

Where,
c – is the solar collector conversion efficiency (in the range of 40%-60%) =50%[48]

GB
-is the beam or direct irradiance

Qu - is the rate of useful energy required from the collector per day

The average beam or direct solar radiation of Bahir Dar falling on the aperture of the dish used
2
for this analysis was 735w/ m . Thus, according to equation 3.28 the aperture area of the dish
becomes 0.977m2.

The aperture area of parabolic dish reflector refers to the total surface area of the dish reflector,
where the incoming solar radiation is captured. Then, the aperture diameter of the dish becomes;

πD2a
Aa = (3.23)
4

Solar concentrators use a truncated portion of the basic parabola curve. The extent of this

truncation is usually defined in terms of the rim angle ( φ r) or the ratio of the focal length to

f
aperture diameter ( Da ).

The equation of the parabola in terms of the coordinate system is;

y2 = 4fx; Where; f= parabola focal distance

46
 Figure 3.9: Cross section of parabolic collector with circular receiver
As shown in the figure below for the same aperture, various rim angles are posible. It is also
shown that, for different rim angles, the focus to aperture ratio, which defines the curvature of

the parabola changes. It can be demonstrated that, with a 90  rim angle, the mean focus to
reflector distance and hence the reflected beam spread is minimized, so that the slope and
tracking errors are less pronounced. The collectors surface area , however, decreases as the rim
angle is decreased.

47
 Figure 3.10: Parabola focal length and curvature with a varing rim angle[25]
A parabola with a small rim angle is relatively flat and the focal length is long compared to its
aperture diameter. Rim angle affects the incoming solar radiation and fabrication of the

parabolic dish. A rim angle of 10  to 90  is used for parabolic reflectors. But, rim angle of 45  .
gives the maximum concentration ratio (highest received flux)[49]. As a result, the parabolic

dish reflector with an optimum rim angle of

r =45  is chosen to minimize shading effect and
ease of manufacturing[49]. Another important parameter related to the rim angle is the focus of
the parabola. Thus, from figure above and simple trigonometry relations the theoretical focus of
the parabola becomes;

Da
f=
4tan (φ2 )
r (3.24)

2f
At the rim angle,  r,the parabolic radius r is given by; r= 1+cos φ
r

Once a specific portion of the parabolic curve has been selected, the height of the curve, h may
be defined as the maximum distance from the vertex to a line drawn across the aperture of the
parabola. The height of the parabola is given by the relation;

D2a
h= (3.25)
16f

Spiral coil receiver is selected over cavity receivers due to its simplicity in transporting the oil
(fluid) in the collector loop. Spiral coil absorber where HTF oil circulates inside is exposed to the
concentrated solar radiation and absorbs the incoming radiation. Thus, spiral coil absorber has
the following advantages[50]:

► compact and suitable to transport HTF (oil)

► cheap and ease of manufacturing
► greater convective heat transfer
► but significant pressure loss occurs

48
 Figure 3.11: Cross-section of spiral coiled pipe receiver
It is better to construct a parabolic dish with a concentration ratio greater than 10 and then it was
set to be 50 for this design[51]. Thus, having the aperture area and geometric concentration ratio,
receiver area of the dish was calculated from;

Aa
C
Ar (3.26)

The receiver diameter determined from the relation of receiver area and this diameter was the
maximum outer diameter of the spiral coil;

 Dr2
Ar 
4 (3.27)

Thus, the maximum outer diameter of the spiral coil receiver can be determined from the
relation.

4 × Ar
D oc =
√ π

It is known that at theoretical focal point the concentration of solar radiation was at a fixed point,
thus it is highly recommended to lower the focal distance to avoid local heating due to point
concentration. Thus, the actual focal distance (f actual=0.53m) should be lower than the theoretical
which is determined from similarity of triangles or trigonometric relations.

49
 Figure 3.12: Locating the actual focal length of the receiver
From standard copper coil pipes similar with thermal storage helical coil, the outer diameter of
coil pipe was selected to be 8mm with wall thickness of 0.8mm.

Usually in spiral coil receivers, the heat transfer fluid circulates inside the coiled tube, which
enters from the side (rim) and leaves at the center of the receiver where the radiation flux and
temperature are higher. To avoid pipe deformations, the spiral coil receiver has a small hole in
the center, of about (Dic =¿50mm) in diameter and clearance pitch between consecutive turn was
c=5mm[50]. Thus, the number of turns of spiral coils is determined using the outer diameter of
the spiral coil, the inner diameter as well as the pitch of the coil and the tube diameter of the coil.

Doc - Dic
N= ¿ (3.28)
2× ( c+ d c ¿

And then the approximate length of the spiral coiled pipe has to be determined using the
following relation:

π R2oc
L= (3.29)
c+ d c

Therefore, in order to capture the heat lost through the center hole and the opening of coil pitch
absorbing plate was attached at the back of spiral coiled tube receiver. Here, the coil and the
back absorber is welded together to enhance the conduction heat transfer and it serves as support
for the coils. In addition to direct heating of the coil tube heat is also transferred to the heat
transfer fluid (oil) via the back absorbing plate so that the solar to thermal conversion efficiency
of the collector is maximized.

50
 Figure 3.13: Black painted spiral coil absorber
3.3 Experimental Testing of System
After successfully developing solar thermal bread baking system an experimental setup
(prototype) was fabricated and has been installed at Bahir Dar University, Institute of
Technology. The examined setup was presented in the figure below. Wheat dough was prepared
by carefully mixing wheat flour, water, salt, yeast and other bread improver additives. Based on
the data collected during visit to small scale bread bakeries and sellers (Difo Dabo) in Bahir dar
it was found that bread dough composition was presented in table below. Bread improvers and
dough conditioners are used in baking commercial breads to reduce the time needed for rising
and to improve texture and volume. Salt is also added to enhance flavor and restrict yeast
activity.

Table 3.5: Dough composition [source: from visit at small scale bread bakeries]

SNo. Raw material Composition (%)

1 Wheat flour 58
2 Water 40
3 Salt 0.8
4 Yeast 0.6
5 Bread improver additives 0.6

Now after the dough and the setup was ready for baking, testing was conducted by measuring the
required data. The result of experimental testing was analyzed and interpreted.

51
K -type thermocouples were used to measure temperature at different places of the setup. These
includes receiver temperature, storage salt temperature and baking plate surface temperature with
in time intervals of an hour. Infrared thermometer was also used to record the temperature profile
of the fluid flowing inside the loop.

Figure 3.14: Experimental setup of the system

3.4 Performance Evaluation of the system
3.4.1 Optical Performance of parabolic dish concentrator
Optical efficiency refers to performance of a collector which depends on the optical properties
of the collector materials, the geometry of the collector, and the various imperfections arising
from the construction of the collector. It can be characterized by the following optical loss
encountered during practical work[49].

 Reflectivity (  ): it is a major parameter which affects the efficiency of the solar collector.
It is the property of reflector material and defined as the ratio of radiation reflected to the
receiver and that of impinging on the reflective surface of the dish. Aluminum foil with
reflectivity of 85% was used due to ease of manufacturing and cost for this application.
 Absorbance (  ): it is the property of the receiver material and expressed as fraction of
reflected radiation hitting the receiver coil surface is absorbed. Hence, well insulated,

52
 isothermal receiver, painted black, and with no transparent glass cover has effective
absorptance of one (blackbody).
 Shading loss (A): refers to part of the reflective area of the dish shaded by the receiver.
Since, the parabolic dish concentrator aperture area is much larger than the receiver area, it is
advisable to take minimum which is less than 1% shading loss.
 Intercept factor (  ): is termed as the fraction of reflected radiation incident on the receiver/
absorber. It is also called spillage loss which defined as a portion of solar radiation reaching
outside the receiver aperture and total loss of about 1–3% is considered.
 Cosine loss: It is the ratio of total reflective area and its projected area, as seen from the sun.
But, the optical axis of parabolic dish collectors is always pointing directly towards the sun to
reflect the beam so that the incidence angle of beam radiation into the dish is zero degree.
Thus, the cosine loss becomes zero for this analysis.
 Incidence angel modifier (k γτα): it is used to account for deviations from the normal of the
angle of incidence of the radiation on the aperture. It includes the effect of angle of incidence
on the intercept factor.
Generally, the optical performance of parabolic dish solar concentrator highly affected by the
combined effect of the above mentioned optical losses. In addition, different operational errors
such as structural, tracking, alignment and others should also be considered during experimental
analysis. Thus, optical efficiency of parabolic dish collector with spiral coil absorber is given by;

ηo =( Aγρα )k γτα (3.30)

3.4.2 Useful Energy Collected and Thermal Loss

The thermal model of spiral coiled tube absorber is based on the energy balance between the
HTF, absorber/receiver, and surrounding. Here, the energy balance considers the direct/ beam
solar radiation falling on the reflector, various optical losses, thermal losses and the useful heat
gained by the HTF. Development and implementation of spiral coil heat absorbers for parabolic
dish solar collector application is the best alternative due to its compactness and efficient heat
transfer capability. Secondary flow occurs during the flow of oil along the curved pipe induced
by centrifugal force and it significantly enhances the heat transfer rate[45].
The incoming beam solar radiation is absorbed by the back plate and black coated spiral coiled
tube absorber (Qabs) and optical losses was considered in the heat flux terms. The heat from the

53
receiver tube is carried by the HTF by convection (Q r-f, conv ). The radiation (Qr-a, rad ) and
convection (Qr-a, conv) losses from the receiver tube to the surrounding air and the conduction (Q b-a,
) loss through the receiver back were accounted in this model.
cond

Figure 3.15: Absorber thermal resistance model

From the thermal network model, the useful energy collected by the heat transfer fluid via
convection is the determined from the absorbed solar radiation and the thermal losses.

Qu  Qabs  Qloss  
(3.31)

Qloss - is the fraction of energy lost from the receiver by conduction, convection &
Where,
radiation

And, the absorbed solar radiation of the collector becomes the product of collector optical
efficiency and solar irradiance incident on the aperture of the dish.

Qabs  o GB Aa
(3.32)

Alternatively , the useful heat gain of the HTF oil is also determined from the convective heat
transfer relation[51];

Qu  Ari h  Tr  T fm 
(3.33)

Where, h – is the heat transfer coefficient between the coil absorber and oil,

Ari 
is the coil absorber inner diameter

54
 T fm T fm T out +T ¿
– is the fluid mean temperature and given by; =
2

Here, the heat transfer coefficient between the absorber coil and the circulating HTF can be
determined through the relation noted in appendix. The thermal losses associated with spiral coil
receiver is the combined effect of conduction, radiation and convection heat losses to the
surrounding environment. The conduction heat loss from the back plate of the receiver to the
ambient via its top insulation was obtained using the relation;

ArK
Q b-a,cond = ( Tr - T a ) (3.34)
t

Where; Ar −¿the area of the receiver, m2

K−¿ thermal conductivity of glass wool insulation, w/m.k

t−¿thicknes of insulation, m

The convective heat loss from the receiver to ambient is given by;

Q r-a, conv = A r h air ( Tr - T a ) (3.35)

Where, Ar −¿ the area of the receiver, m2

h air −¿Convective heat transfer coefficient between coil absorber & the
surrounding air W/m2.k

Then, the radiation heat loss to the ambient has to be determined from;

Qr-a, rad = A r εr σ ( T 4r - T 4a ) (3.36)

Where,ε r−¿ , is the emissivity of black painted receiver¿ 0.98

σ −¿is the Stefan -Boltzmann constant ¿ 5.67 ×10−8 w/m2 K 4

Note that the ambient temperature is used in radiation heat loss calculation because the spiral coil
absorber does not radiate with the sky temperature as it faces to the ground. In addition to the
absorber loss, heat losses also occurs through the transportation pipe wall and thermal storage
container wall. Hence for this case heat transferred from fluid pipe and that of storage wall is

55
considered to be negligible due to better insulation. Because only the absorber heat loss creates a
significant effect on the thermal performance of the system.

3.4.3 Performance of Solar Thermal Bread Baking System

The collector efficiency is a measure of the collector performance can be defined as the ratio of
useful heat gain of oil over the specified time period to that of the incident solar radiation over
the same time interval. Useful energy extracted by the fluid is related to the absorbed solar
radiation and the total thermal loss of the receiver. The absorbed radiation per unit aperture area
can be estimated from the radiation and optical characteristic of parabolic dish solar collector.
The thermal losses must be estimated from the summation of radiation, convection and
conduction losses of the absorber/receiver. Thus, the instantaneous efficiency of a collector can
be determined by useful heat gain of the HTF, the total thermal loss of the receiver/absorber and
the amount of solar radiation incident on the aperture of the dish. The hourly efficiency of a
collector should be considered as instantaneous efficiency and expressed by:

Qu
ηi = (3.37)
GB Aa

The daily averaged efficiency of the collector which is termed as cumulative efficiency &
obtained by summing the useful heat gain of those hours dividing by the total beam radiation
incident on the collector between sunrise and sunset.

ηc , daily =
∑ Qu
(3.38)
∑ GB Aa
After determining the energy distribution and efficiency of solar collector, energy supplied,
energy stored and energy utilized for baking must be known. Heat energy supplied is the energy
given to the storage through circulating HTF and given by;

Qs =mCp ( T in - T out ) (3.39)

Where, m- mass flow rate of oil, kg/s

C p – Specific heat capacity of oil, KJ/kg.k

T ¿- Inlet temperature of oil to the storage nearly the same as absorber outlet, ℃

56
 T out - Outlet temperature of oil from the storage, ℃

Heat energy stored by the PCM salt (Q stored ) is also determined by equation 3.7 above. And
energy utilized for bread baking (Q utilized ) is given by;

Ts- Tb
Q utilized =
(3.40)
(1hA + tkA )
Where, T s – salt temperature, ℃

T b – baking plate temperature, ℃

A- Area of baking plate, m2

h- Heat transfer coefficient, w/m2.k

k – Thermal conductivity of the baking plate, w/m.k

Having the energy distribution at each section of the storage, the efficiency of the system could
be estimated. So that the efficiency of the storage (%) is given by[14][52]:

heat stored Q
ηstorage= storage ¿= stored (3.41)
heat supplied ¿ Qs

Efficiency of the baking unit or energy utilization ratio can be determined by the relation[14];

heat utilized Q utilized

EUR = = (3.42)
heat stored Q stored

Where, EUR – the energy utilization ratio (%)

3.5 Bread Quality Analysis

Bread quality can be characterized by brownness index, softness, crispness texture and other
sensory attributes. Browning is the major attribute of bread, which is directly related to the
surface temperature and baking time. Surface browning of the bread crust can be expressed as
browning index or color difference ∆E between the raw dough and bread after baking[13].

∆ E=√ ( ∆ L2 +∆ a 2+ ∆ b2 ) (3.43)

57
 Where, ∆L is the brightness color difference,

∆a is the redness color difference and

∆b is the yellowness color difference

The degree of crispness is directly related to the maximum force required to break bread samples
by the texture analyzer. A texture analyzer for food products was used for the instrumental
analysis of the bread crust and crumb. The weight loss during baking was determined by
weighting the dough before baking and bread (product) after baking. Thus, the relative weight
loss will be calculated as[53]:

w 0−w f
W L= ( wo ) (3.44)

Where; wo is the initial weight of the dough and

wf is the final weight of product

Similarly, the volume expansion (e) during baking was obtained by measuring the height of the
bread dough before (h0) and bread product after (hf) baking and calculated as:

hf −ho
e= ( ho ) (3.45)

58
4 Results and Discussion

The experimental testing was conducted on clear sunny days from December 20&21/2012E.C.
During baking various tests and measurements were performed to evaluate the performance of
the system. Solar meter was used for recording the amount of beam radiation falling on the
aperture of the collector. Thermocouple was used to measure the receiver temperature, fluid
temperature at the absorber outlet, baking plate surface temperature, storage temperature,
collector inlet temperature with time. Thus, bread baking test were performed successfully and
the following test results were recorded. Design results of the setup were presented from table
4.1to table 4.3.

Table 4.1:
SNo. Parameter Value Unit
Basic
1 Storage material ( NaNo3-KNo3) 60:40 wt% parameters and
dimensions of
2 Mass of storage, m 6 Kg
thermal storage
unit 3 Volume of storage, V 3.475× 10-3 m3
4 Number of coil, N 7 -
5 Length of coil pipe, L 4.5 m
6 Volume occupied by the coil, V c 0.226× 10-3 m3
Table 4.2:
7 Volume due to thermal expansion, ∆ V 0.14× 10 -3
m 3
Typical design
specification of
8 Copper tube diameter, d c 0.008 m
parabolic dish
9 Coil outer diameter, Doc 0.36 m reflector

Coil inner diameter, Dic

10 Parameter Value 0.05 Unit m
11 Height of storage shell, h 0.011 m 59
12 Diameter of the storage, Ds 0.42 m

13 clearance between consecutive turns, c 0.015 m

 Aperture area 0.977 m2
Aperture diameter 1.1 m
Focal length 0.60 m
Rim angle, φ r 45 °

Dish height, h 0.104 m

Parabolic radius, r 0.70 m
Concentration ratio, C 50 -
Beam radiation 735 w/ m
2

Table 4.3:Geometrical parametrs of the spiral coil receiver

Parameter Value Unit

Outer diameter of spiral coil, Doc 0.14 m

Inner diameter of spiral coil, Dic 50 mm

Coil pipe diameter, d c 8 mm

Wall thickness of the pipe 0.8 mm

Clearance between consecutive turns, c 5 mm
Pitch of the coil, p 13 mm
Number of turns of the coil, N 4 -
Approximate length of the coil, L 1.4 m

4.1 Results of Experimental Testing

The amount of solar irradiance received affects the performance of the system, since the receiver
temperature, fluid outlet temperature and others are directly related to solar irradiance. Thus, as
solar radiation increases these temperature results also increase proportionally. The average solar
irradiance and ambient temperature of Bahir Dar recorded during the test period were presented
in the figure below. Both the ambient temperature and daily solar radiance increases to
maximum value at noon time and starts to decline at the afternoon. Even if data measurement

60
was taken 2:00 to 11:00 local time, but useful heat was extracted from 3:00 to 10:00. The
variation of solar radiation and ambient temperature with time of the day was given in figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Daily solar irradiance and ambient temperature distribution

The daily maximum solar irradiance and ambient temperature recorded were 945W/m 2 and 28.97
℃ respectively. The daily average solar irradiance was 675.4 W/m 2 which lower than the
analytical value of 735 W/m 2. The average ambient temperature becomes 26.5℃ which was in
close agreement with theoretical value of 25℃ assumed initially.

Temperature profile of the Receiver

The receiver temperature affects the useful heat generated by the fluid. It reaches maximum at
the noon time as the solar radiance gets maximum. The daily variation of receiver temperature as
a function of time of the day was given in the figure 4.2.

61
 Figure 4.2: Daily the receiver/absorber temperature profile with time
The test results indicate that the maximum receiver/absorber temperature reached 286℃ at noon
time whereas daily average receiver temperature recorded was 214℃. The increase in
temperature of the absorber greatly affected by amount of solar irradiance, cloud cover, wind,
tracking error, and other optical loss parameters. Optimizing these cause of heat loss would
improve the receiver temperature.
Temperature profile of the HTF
The system uses 2liters of shell Thermia oil and continuously circulated with a flow rate of 33.6
ml/min depending on the availability of solar radiation. Even if the collector generates useful
heat during the period of 3:00 to 10:00 local time, the effective storage charging period was
between 4:00 and 9:00 local time. Heating up of HTF increases as the receiver temperature
increases. Using fluids with better thermal capacity would enhance the heat from the receiver.
However, the thermos- physical properties of the HTF, absorber losses and mass flow rate plays
an important role on the performance of solar to thermal energy conversion of the
receiver/absorber. The variation of temperature profile of the outlet HTF from the absorber was
given in the figure 4.3.

62
 Figure 4.3: Daily collector fluid outlet temperature profile with time
Temperature profile of the storage
The rise of salt temperature inside the storage during the charging time was presented in figure
5.4. The storage was charged for 12 hour effective solar radiation which means approximately
one and half day effective radiation and heat was subsequently discharged to the baking plate
during baking. Charging time refers to the time duration required for the solar thermal system to
collect the desired amount of heat whereas discharged time is the time duration of utilization of
energy from the storage unit to the baking chamber. This prolonged charging time was due to the
heat transfer property (lower heat capacity and thermal conductivity) of the HTF and the storage
salt. Using fluids with better thermal capacity may reduce the charging time. The PCM salt
below the baking plate allows for maintaining the surface temperature during baking session.

63
 Figure 4.4: storage salt temperature profiles with charging time
A temperature drop was occurred due to the heat loss during night time for both storage salt
through the insulation wall as seen in figure 4.4. The salt temperature achieved during charging
was 265℃ and the corresponding melting temperature of PCM salt was 220℃ but the analytical
result was 287℃. Hopefully through an optimized storage design and increased concentrator
aperture area the charging time could be improved to attain the specified salt temperature. Figure
5.5 shows the daily variation of storage salt temperature as a function of time of the day.

64
 Figure 4.5: The daily salt temperature profile inside the storage with time
The salt temperature rises linearly with time within the day and is directly releted to the
incoming hot HTF out of the absorber, heat transfer area and thermal conductivity of the Storage.
The addition of aluminum chips enhanced the conductivity of the salt but still further
improvement should required to extract heat faster from the oil.
The baking plate temperature attained was 160℃ and the corresponding baking time took was
48 minutes which was comparable with presented by Tesfay, et al.,[37]. Even if baking
performed by conventional baking system was in the temperature range of 180-220℃,
Hailessilase Asfafaw, et al.,[15] proved the possibility of baking (both Enjera and bread) up to a
pan surface temperature of 120-160℃ using aluminum plate as baking pan. Therefore, the result
shows that the possibility of baking by the attained temperature with well insulated and
controlled baking environment.

Temperature profile of bread

Thermocouple was inserted slightly on the dough at the center to record the temperature
variation during baking process as in figure 4.8b. The bread crump/core temperature was

65
measured at the center with interval of baking time during baking process and presented in figure
4.6.

Figure 4.6: Temperature profile of bread core measured from its center
Baking process ends after 48 minutes of baking time and as the crump temperature reached 93℃
. The bread surface temperature increase linearly during the first 25 minutes and slow rise of
temperature till the end of baking and the maximum crump temperature limited to 100℃. Thus,
increasing from this maximum value could affects the sensory attributes of bread. Temperature
of the bottom surface of the bread was higher than that of the top surface since the heat source is
only from the bottom side as conventional biomass baking.

4.2 Results of Performance Evaluation of the System

The performance of a solar thermal system depends on the efficiency of a solar concentrator, the
efficiency of thermal storage and the efficiency of the baking plate as well. So that overall
performance of the system is the product of these efficiencies. Baking experiment was performed
to know the energy distribution and energy loss at various sections of the baking system such as
energy absorbed by the receiver, amount of energy supplied to the storage, amount of energy

66
stored and energy utilized for baking. As energy transfers from one medium to another energy
loss should occur. It needs to calculate the amount of energy lost to optimize and improve the
system performance.
The collector performance parameters such as the absorbed radiation, thermal loss, useful
energy and instantaneous efficiency were listed in table 5.1.

Table 4.4: Results for thermal performance parameters of parabolic dish solar collector

Time G B [W/m2] Ta [oC] Q̇ s [W/m2] Q̇ ab [W/m2] Q̇ loss [W/m2] Q̇ u [W/m2] ❑i [%]

2:00 365 22.23 356.6 206.83 21.33 164.17 0.460

3:00 519 24.6 507.1 294.1 30.9 232.3 0.458
4:00 762 27.14 744.5 431.8 39.46 352.87 0.474
5:00 888 28.64 867.6 503.2 45.32 412.56 0.475
6:00 945 28.97 923.3 535.5 51.5 432.5 0.468
7:00 918 28.84 896.9 520.2 49.65 420.9 0.469
8:00 839 28.17 819.7 475.43 43.4 388.66 0.474
9:00 700 26.67 683.9 396.66 36.54 323.6 0.473
10:0
468 25.43
0 457.236 265.2 26.47 212.26 0.464
11:0
350 23.7
0 341.95 198.33 17.4 163.54 0.478
Sum - - 6598.7 - - 3103.34 0.470

It has been seen that from the test result the cumulative daily solar thermal efficiency of this
solar concentrator becomes 47.0% which is in close agreement with the designed value (50%)
and that of proposed by Mohammed, Ibrahim Ladan [48] thus the thermal performance of the
collector was satisfactory. The performance of the thermal storage was 83.4% and that of energy
utilization factor of the baking system was 88.9%. So that the overall system efficiency is the
product of these efficiency terms and an overall efficiency of 34.8% was achieved. However,
efficient baking system design and selection of proper material are critical to improve the bread
quality and energy consumption of the baking process.

67
4.3 Results for Bread Quality Analysis
Bread quality greatly affected by dough composition, baking temperature and baking time. This
quality parameters of bread includes, brownness, softness/crispness, moisture content, volume
expansion and others. All the quality attributes of the bread was the result of different physical
and chemical changes occurred by simultaneous heat mass transfer during baking process. This
is mainly affected by baking plate temperature and time of baking.

Bread crispness index

The softness and crispness of a bread is the quality attributes of the product during consumption.
Thus, the degree of crispness is related to the maximum force required to penetrate/break bread
sample by a texture analyzer. At three places (center, 8cm to the left & right) of bread sample
was subjected to a compression test after 2 hour of baking. During penetration of the sample a
force versus time curve was constructed on the computer integrated to the texture analyzer.

Figure 4.7: Texture analyzer used to test the crispness of bread

The crispness index ( from 0 to 1) is linearly proportional to the maximum penetration force(i.e.
from 27g to 512g). A crispness value of 1 implies all water content evaporates and zero implies
no water content evaporates. As seen from the result of the analyzer the average maximum force
applied for penetration of the sample was 150g. Thus, according to [13] the crispness index for
this solar thermal energy based baked bread sample was 0.3.

68
Weight loss
Weight loss is the result of the evaporation of water from the dough during baking and depends
on the baking temperature and baking time. The weight loss during the baking process was
measured from the start to the end of baking. So that final baked bread sample weight was
measured to be 0.73kg with a loss of 0.11kg from the initial weight of dough sample (0.84kg).
There was a weight loss of 13% which means the percentage of the initial weight of the dough
removed during baking which is in close agreement with the value suggested by [ V. Nicolas, et
al].
Bread volume expansion

fi
The bread height also called volume expansion was measured from the start to the end of baking.
Initial height of the dough increases gradually from 2.2cm to 2.7cm which is the final height of
the bread. An insignificant increase in bread diameter was also occurred. This volume expansion
is the result of the increase of internal pressure due to the production of CO 2 gas from the baking
powder (yeast) and water evaporation during baking process. So that the bread volume
expansion after baking was 23% of the initial dough volume before baking.

Evaluation of browning

Bread browning reaction was initiated as the surface temperature exceeds 120℃ and thus, the
development of browning for baking plate surface temperature of 160℃ for this case was
noticeable. It is the result of intensity of maillard reaction which produces melanoidins as
coloring compound and it depends on the baking temperature and water content.

69
 Figure 4.8: Bread baking process (a) Before baking (b) While baking (c) After baking
As shown in figure 4.8 above the color intensity of bread changes from white (initially) to
golden-yellow or brown crust (finally). The brownness of the product was in close agreement
with bread quality standards reported by [Emmanuel Purlis]. An acceptable value of surface
browning is required during baking process as the excessive browning affects the sensory
70
attributes of bread such as flavor, appearance/color and formation of acrylamide (carcinogenic
substance).

5 Economic Analysis

A reasonable cost of solar thermal bread baking system is an important factor to attract the user
and increase its application for the replacement of other conventional baking options. In order to
estimate the cost of solar thermal bread bakery, the cost of each material used for fabrication
must be known. List of materials and the corresponding price was tabulated below.

Table 5.1: List of materials and the corresponding cost used to construct the setup

Material Use Specification Quantity Unit price Total price

(ETB) (ETB)
Sodium nitrate Thermal storage Kilogram 4.2 580 2436
(NaNo3)
Potassium Thermal storage Kilogram 2.8 900 2520
nitrate (KNo3)
Stainless steel Storage container 1m×2m×1mm 0.5 2000 1000
sheet inner wall construction
Galvanized Storage outer wall 1m×2m×1mm 0.5 600 300
steel sheet construction
Corrugated steel Construction of body 1m×2m×1mm 3 200 600
sheet of the dish, and cover
Aluminum baking plate 1m×2m×1mm 0.5 700 350
sheet
Aluminum foil reflector material Roll 2 55 110
Rectangular bar Dish stand and storage - 1 300 300
stand construction
Adhesive Fix the reflector over - 1 60 60
(Mastish) the body of the dish

71
 Copper pipe Receiver & storage ∅6mm 7meter 115 775
heat exchanger
Steel pipe Oil transportation ∅1/4inch 2meter 250 500
Flexible pipe Oil transportation ∅3/8inch 1 150 150
peristaltic pump To drive the HTF - 1 1800 1800
Paint For painting - 2 70 140
Glass wool For insulation Pack 1 400 400
Thermal oil Heat transfer fluid Liter 2 200 400
Total cost 9571
Payback period Estimation and feasibility of the system

The most commonly used method to assess the economic feasibility of an investment. Payback
period refers to the time required to recover the cost of an investment. It is an important factor to
decide whether the investment is feasible or not. The system overall saved money becomes the
difference between income from selling bread and that of cost of dough. The system has low/no
maintenance and operation cost. The system was designed to bake four bread with eight bread
slices and each with a price of 6birr daily.

Daily income = [(4 ×6) ×6birr]-cost of dough=144ETB-100ETB

Monthly income of the bakery was estimated to be 1320ETB per month. And, the overall price
of the setup (13071ETB) was the summation of material cost (9571ETB) and manufacturing cost
(3500ETB).

cost of system
Payback period = =9.9month
income per month

Therefore, the payback period of the system was estimated to be 9 months and 14days of
operation. About 57% of the prototype cost was the thermal storage from the total cost and
hopefully this cost could be reduced through optimizing the storage design. The solar thermal
based PCM integrated bread baking system was designed targeting small scale bread (Difo
Dabo) bakeries. Since the total cost of the system is not affordable for single household use. In
most parts of the country Difo Dabo is baked using biomass (fire wood) as a fuel source. The
feasibility of bread baking using solar thermal system and traditional biomass baking has been

72
compared in this study. Fabião Armando Manhiça et, al. [20] studied the analysis of wood fired
bakery ovens baking process and their wood consumption and thus, the specific fire wood
consumption was found to be 0.90kg of wood per kg of wheat flour baked.

Fire wood consumption = (kg of wheat flour baked)×(specific wood consumption)

Therefore, it was known that 5kg of wheat flour consumed during four cycles of baking, the fire
wood consumption estimated to be 4.5kg per day. Thus, about 135kg of fire wood per month
would be saved if solar energy was used as heat source of baking instead. About two decades
ago biomass was very cheap and can be collected for free in rural areas. But now a days, the
price of biomass increases as it purchased from merchants. Similarly the price of electricity
grew sharply and has limited access. Thus, direct burning of biomass is associated with
incomplete combustion, emits a large amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) and has major effect
on human health and global warming. Smoke from burning fuelwood contains high levels of
respirable particulates, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, benzene, formaldehyde, and aromatics.
Cooking often takes place indoors, leading to concentrations of hazardous fumes and thus, from
traditional biomass baking system affects human health particularly women as a result of indoor
air pollution. Another factor of using biomass fired baking process is deforestation which is
responsible for carbon fixation (a natural mechanism for balancing GHG emissions). Emissions
such as CO2, CH4, N2O, and other gases released through burning of biomass have long lifetime
in the atmosphere and these gases called the greenhouse gases absorb outgoing energy from the
earth and caused a warming effect.

Previously, very little attention have been paid on shifting to alternative energy to reduce the
health and environmental risks associated with traditional biomass energy use. Thus, using solar
baking systems would eliminate or diminish women respiratory illnesses arising from exposure
to smoke during biomass (fuelwood) baking process. Solar thermal energy can help to achieve
sustainable use of natural resources, as well as reducing (GHG) emissions, which protects the
local and global environment. Therefore, it was critical to shift the energy usage to solar thermal
energy for baking which is renewable resource and it needs continual system improvements,
demonstrations & awareness creation to the society.

73
6 Conclusions and Recommendations

6.1 Conclusions
Solar thermal based bread baking system is a best alternative in order to shift the country’s
dependence on fossil fuel and minimize the environmental effect of burning fossil fuels. In this
study design and experimental testing of solar thermal bread baking system with proper PCM
thermal storage has been carried out. The system uses parabolic dish reflector having aperture
area of 0.977m2 was used to concentrate the incoming solar irradiance with 8mm diameter spiral
coiled copper tube absorber embedded on aluminum plate. Thermal storage used was 6kg of
eutectic mixture of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate also named as solar salt. The major
limitation of using this salt as thermal energy storage was its low thermal conductivity which
limits the charging/discharging time and this was addressed by adding 10% aluminum chips.
The main challenges faced while conducting the experimental test of the system was difficulty of
managing heat transfer oil leaks, tracking errors due to manual tracking and heat loss (especially
at the absorber/receiver section).

The maximum storage salt temperature achieved was 265 ℃ with charging time of 12 hours of
effective sunshine. The receiver temperature achieved was an average of 214℃ with the daily
maximum 286℃ and the corresponding daily average solar irradiance of 675.4W/m 2. Baking
process completes after 48 minutes with plate surface temperature of 160℃. The test result
proves the quality attributes of the bread baked using solar thermal energy were in close
agreement to that of the conventional baking. In conclusion, the results from the present study
has shown that the possibility of bread baking using solar thermal energy as heat source and solar
salt as PCM thermal storage.

6.2 Recommendations
Due to the limited access and rising cost to conventional energy sources, it is significant to shift
to renewable energy for environmental sustainability. Solar thermal energy system is one of the
promising renewable energy solution for sustainable energy utilization. Generally, this study
shows that bread baking using solar thermal energy based bakeries was possible by scaling up
the system and creating awareness to the society about the benefits of the technology.

Therefore, the main points to be recommended for future work based on the result of this study;

74
► Prolonged charging time and melting of the storage was observed in this system and can
be solved by using thermal storage material with relatively low melting point and better
thermal properties. And also using highly conductive material other than aluminum such
as copper and graphite to enhance the thermal conductivity.
► Tracking of the solar collector was challenge of this system thus, automatic solar tracking
system should be designed.
► Further system analysis and optimization should be necessary using numerical modeling
tool.
► Future work should focus on scaling up and demonstration of the systems to attract small
scale bakeries.

75
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Appendix

Table 1-A: Results of experimental testing

Time Receiver Fluid collector outlet Ambient Solar radiation

temperature temperature temperature
2:00 138.2 83.4 22.23 365
3:00 189.5 133.8 24.6 519
4:00 232.7 193.5 27.14 762
5:00 260 218 28.64 888
6:00 286 245.7 28.97 945
7:00 278.4 235.6 28.84 918
8:00 251.2 209 28.17 839
9:00 218.7 177.8 26.67 700
10:00 167.9 116.3 25.43 468
11:00 118.6 76.9 23.7 350
Average 214.12 169 26.439 675.4

Table 2-A: Typical Thermophysical properties of shell Thermia oil B

Temperatur Density Specific heat Thermal conductivity Prandtl

e (℃) (kg/m3) capacity (kJ/kg.k) (W/m.k) number
0 876 1.809 0.136 3375
20 863 1.882 0.134 919
40 850 1.954 0.133 375
100 811 2.173 0.128 69
150 778 2.355 0.125 32

81
 200 746 2.538 0.121 20
250 713 2.72 0.118 14
300 681 2.902 0.114 11
340 655 3.048 0.111 9

Table 3-A: List of sensible heat storage materials and their physical properties [31]
Storage Temperature Density Heat capacity Thermal Energy density
medium range, ℃ (ρ)Kg/m3 conductivity, w/m℃
C p , kJ / kg oC (  C ), kwh / m3 0C
Water 0-100 1000 4.18 0.63 at 38℃ 1.16
Molten salt 142-540 1680 1.56 0.61 0.72
Liquid 100-760 750 1.26 67.5 0.26
sodium
Aluminum Melting point 2700 0.888 237 0.666
-660
Rock - 1600 0.88 - 0.39

Determining the Hot PCM salt temperature

Table 4-A: Thermophysical propreties of solar salt in liquid state[54]

Property Unit Correlations

Heat capacity  J / kg oC  C p  1443  0.172T ℃)
:T(

Density  kg / m3    2090  0.636T : T (℃ )

Thermal conductivity W / m oC  k  0.443  1.9  104 T : T (℃ )

Dinamic Viscosity [pa s]  

  22.14  0.12T  2.281104  T 2  103
:T(
℃

)
Kinematic viscocity [m 2 /s ] μ
ν=
ρ

82
 Thermal diffusivity [m 2 /s ] k
α=
ρ Cp

Thus, according to the above correlations thermo physical properties of hot PCM at the given
temperature becomes;

Cp =1493J/kg℃ ρ=1905.56kg/ m 3

k=0.4981W/m ℃ μ=6.52×10-3 Pa s

μ k
ν = =3.42× 10-6 m 2 /s α= =1.75×10-7 m 2 /s
ρ ρ Cp

The average film temperature of the hot salt for this iteration becomes;

290℃ +25 ℃
T film = =157.5 ℃
2

The Raileigh number was estimated from equation 3.6 as:

9.81× ( 290-25 ) × 0.13

Ra= -6 -7
=2.76× 1010
157.5× ( 3.42× 10 ) ( 1.75× 10 )

1/4
Nu=0.27× ( 2.76×1010 ) =110

Nuk
Hence the convective heat transfer coefficent, h= =547.9W/ m 2 ℃
Lc

According to equation 3.4 the required average hot salt temperature become, T 1 =276.62 ℃.
Now doing the next iteration using this new temperature, properties of hot salt were;

Cp =1490J/kg℃ ρ=1914kg/ m 3

k=0.4956W/m ℃ μ=6.399×10-3 Pa s

μ k
ν = =3.34× 10-6 m 2 /s α= =1.7378×10-7 m 2 /s
ρ ρ Cp

similarly new film temperature for this iteration becomes;

83
 276.62℃ +25℃
T film = = 150.8 ℃
2

9.81× ( 276.62-25 ) × 0.13

Ra= -6 -7
=2.82× 1010
150.8× ( 3.34× 10 ) ( 1.7378× 10 )

1/4
Nu=0.27× ( 2.82×1010 ) =111

Nuk
Thus, h= =550.1W/ m 2 ℃
Lc

Substituting the values gives salt temperature of 276.4℃. After doing similar iterations, the
maximum hot PCM salt temperature had to be 287℃ with negligible error of 0.00014.

Thermophysical properties of the mixture

Thermophysical properties of the mixture was defined by the following relations[42];

 Thermal conductivity of the mixture: K m = ( K a V a + Ksalt Vsalt )/ (V a + Vsalt )

 Density of the mixture (solar salt +aluminum chips): ρm =( ρa V a + ρs V s )/ (V a + V s )
 Specific heat capacity of the mixture; Cpm = ( Cpa Ma + Cp,salt M salt )/ (Ma + Msalt )

Determining the heat transfer coefficient of HTF and PCM salt

As noted by[45] the critical Reynolds number for flow along spiral coil pipe is higher than that
of straight pipes. For spiral coil pipe flow there are two critical Reynolds numbers one is when
the fluid enters from the outermost turn and the other is when the fluid enters from the innermost
turn. Therefore, for this study the fluid enters from the innermost turn and the corresponding
transition Reynolds number is 13608 from relation below[45];

0.17 0.1
di
[ ( )
Recr =2300 1+6.25
R min
p
( )
Rmin ]
And, the corresponding average Nusselt number for the fluid flowing through smooth pipe can
be obtained by;

Nu=0.023 Re0.8 Pr 0.4

84
Thus, the convective heat transfer coefficient of HTF oil was determined through iterative
procedure by taking the initial guess storage inlet oil temperature of 280℃ and outlet temperature
of storage has to be 75℃. The heat transfer coefficient inside helically coiled tube for laminar

Nu  k
hf 
flow is determined using the relation; di

For natural convective heat transfer over horizontal coiled pipe the average Nusselt number
based on salt properties estimated at film temperature is determined by [43], [55]:

2
0.387 Ra1 /6
{
Nu= 0.6+
[ 1+ ( 0.559/ Pr )9/ 16 ]
8/ 27
}
gB  Tpcm  T  L3c
Ra  Pr
But, the Rayleigh number, v2

Where, Lc −¿the characteristic is equal to the diameter of the copper tube

Since the salt is stationary the convective heat transfer from the coil to the salt is by natural
convection and once the average Nusselt number known the corresponding the average

Nu×K
convection coefficient can be determined. h pcm =
Lc

Determining the heat transfer coefficient between absorber coil and HTF
As noted by[45] the critical Reynolds number for flow along spiral coil pipe is higher than that
of straight pipes. For spiral coil pipe flow there are two critical Reynolds numbers one is when
the fluid enters from the outermost turn and the other is when the fluid enters from the innermost
turn. Therefore, for this study the fluid enters from the outermost turn and the corresponding
transition Reynolds number is given by[45];

0.21 0.1
d
[ ( )
Recr =2300 1+4.9 i
R max
p
( )
R max ]

85
According to the above relation for laminar flow inside the spiral pipe, Reynolds number (
Re )
will be less than 7130 and the corresponding average Nusselt number for the fluid flowing
through smooth pipe can be obtained by;

Nu=0.023 Re0.8 Pr 0.4

Hence, the convective heat transfer coefficient between coil absorber pipe and hot oil is obtained

Nu  k
h
as; Dri

Climatic data collection

This section describes the climatic data that was used to carry out this project. This project is
conducted by sustainable energy engineering postgraduate student at Bahir Dar institute of
technology. And the location is suitable to run the project because of two reasons and those are,
Bahir Dar area receive sufficient amount of solar radiation and easy to access the data.

Table 5-A: Monthly average wind speed of Bahir Dar at 2m height [source: Bahir Dar metrology
2009 – 2018]
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr Ma Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Average
y t
Wind 0.8 1.0 0.9 0.7 0.7 0.86
speed 0.73 4 5 1.15 1.07 7 0.79 6 0.81 0.74 4 0.69

From the table above, the average 10 year average data wind speed of the specified site is
0.86m/s. hence the analysis of this thesis is based on this mean wind speed data of Bahir Dar.

Sunshine hour represents the average number of hours in the daytime that the sun is visible and
not obscured by cloud. Thus, from the metrological data of Bahir Dar, the following monthly
mean sunshine hour data were obtained.

Table 6-A: Monthly average sunshine hour of Bahir Dar [source: Bahir Dar metrology 2009 –
2018]
Month Ja Feb Mar Apr Ma Ju Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 10 year

86
 n y n t Avg.
Sunshine 8.0
hour 9.5 9.6 9.2 9.2 8.0 6.8 4.9 4.9 6.5 8.6 9.3 9.7

The long term average values of (hourly, daily, and monthly) global, beam and diffuse radiation
falling on the horizontal surface are very crucial in any solar energy application. Specifically,
solar thermal system needs monthly average daily radiation of a horizontal surface as an input so
as to estimate the useful energy production of the system[56].

The climatic data location of Bahir Dar is located 11.6° North and 37.4° South and based on this
location there was metrological climatic data for Bahir Dar from NASA website but in order to
get real data it is essential to look for direct measured values of solar radiation data. Since,
Ethiopian Meteorological Service as well as Bahir Dar district records only the daily sunshine
duration of the location.

Table 7-A: Monthly average beam/direct radiation incident on horizontal surface

Month Jan Feb Mar Apr Ma Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual
y t
Beam radiation 5.88
(kwh/m 2 /day ) 5.95 6.41 6.61 6.61 6.13 5.55 4.94 5.25 5.66 5.98 5.77 5.67

87