CHAPTER-I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 General

Energy is the key input for the socio-economic development of any nation and it
improves the quality of life also. Energy plays an important role in domestic and productive
activities. In the course of development of civilization, the rate of energy consumption in all
forms has been rising all over the world. This may be due to an increase in population as well
as the change of standard of living which attracts people towards mechanization.

Four primary energy sources are available in the world such as petroleum, natural gas,
coal, and wood, such a conventional energy source are going to be run out in the nearest future.
This conventional energy sources have an intimidating shadow on our present and future global
safety, environmental values, health and society in general. Increased utilize of fossil fuels not
only reduces the earth's limited fossil fuel reserves but also causes environmental problems.
Fossil fuel-based energy resources still predominate with a maximum share in global energy
consumption. Nowadays, the generation of clean energy becomes more and more crucial due
to the growing significance of environmental issues. Intensive efforts are made worldwide to
narrow the gap between renewable and conventional energy sources. The entire world is facing
a serious energy crisis due to the shortage of fossil fuels. In India, with the increase of
population and other processes like urbanization and industrialization, energy demand is also
rising constantly. According to the studies and researches, the consumption of the energy in
the world is doubled every 20 years (Motahayyer et al., 2018). Considering, future concerns
about the security of energy supply to sustain economic growth, there is an urgent need to
promote clean and alternative energy sources, systems, and technologies.

Renewable energy technologies are considered as clean energy sources and optimal use
of these resources minimize environmental impacts and produce minimum secondary wastes.
Energy generation is a mixture of these four sources like thermal (63.7%), renewable (21.3%),
hydro (13.0%), and nuclear (2.0%). The total energy generation of India, renewable energy is
in the 2nd position with total installed capacity reached 330GW (http://mnre.gov.in).

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1.2 Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is the energy collected from renewable resources, which are
naturally replenished on a human timescale such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and
geothermal heat. Renewable energy sources are considered as the cleanest source of energy
with the least carbon emissions or pollution and produce minimum secondary wastes. This
helps in reducing reliance on coal and other fossil fuels. With the expansion of renewable
energy, India can improve air quality, reduce global warming emissions, create new industries
and jobs, and help to move the world towards a cleaner, safer, and affordable energy. Ever-
increasing demands of energy for agriculture, domestic for drying and cooking as well as
industrial purpose are the main driving forces behind the efforts for more effectively utilizing
various sources of renewable energy.

Numerous renewable energy technologies are available, which are technically and
commercially sustainable option for decentralized energy supply in the rural industry. The
naturally available solar energy can effectively be utilized for drying with process time
reduction. The integration of these renewable technologies is the need for agro-industry for
better performance and sustainable development.

Renewable energy sources are available in various forms such as solar energy, wind
energy, biomass, etc. as shown in fig 1.1. Among all these sources, solar energy is the cheapest,
inexhaustible and ample source which is a direct form of energy. Solar energy is one of the
most abundant renewable energy sources and emits energy at a rate of 3.8×1023 kW, of which,
approximately 1.8×1014 kW is intercepted by the earth which is about ten times larger than
current annual world energy consumption (Tyagi et al., 2012). In principle, solar energy could
supply all the present and future energy needs of the world continuously. Solar energy is an
environmentally clean source of energy and also free and available in adequate quantities in
almost all parts of the world.

Access to quality, reliable and affordable energy is critical for promoting economic and
social development in rural areas. The energy situation in rural India is characterized by the
low quality of fuel, low efficiency of use, low reliability of supply and limited access leading
to lower productivity of land, water and human effort, ultimately leading to the low quality of
life and environmental degradation. The presence of reliable energy services in the lives of

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these rural populations can significantly improve their prospects by offering a range of benefits,
such as poverty reduction, health improvements and opportunities for a better livelihood.

Fig. 1.1. Schematic representation of renewable energy sources. (Pillai et al., 2009)

1.3 Current Scenario of Renewable Energy in India

It is not hidden anymore that India has vast availability of renewable resources and it
has one of the largest programs in the world for deploying renewable energy products and
systems. India is the only country in the world to have an exclusive ministry for renewable
energy sources research and development, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE)
which has launched one of the world’s largest and ambitious programs on renewable energy.

21.3 %
2% Thermal Power

13 % Hydro Power
63.7 %
Nuclear Power

RES Power

Fig. 1.2: Total Installed Power Capacity in India (March 2019)

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 At present India has total installed power capacity is 350.162 GW including, total
Thermal power 63.7 %, Hydropower 13 %, Nuclear power 2 % and RES power 21.3 %. The
renewable energy-based power generation capacity presently constitutes 21.3 % of the total
installed capacity in the country from all sources (http://powermin.nic.in) as plotted in Fig 1.2.

Table 1.1: Installed Renewable Power Capacity (excluding large hydropower) (up to 31
March 2019)

FY: 2018-2019 Cumulative

Sector
Target Achievement Achievements

1. Grid-Interactive Power (Capacities In MWP)

Wind Power 4000 1145.10 35288.10
Solar Ground Mounted 10000 3994.38 24582.23
Power Roof Top 1000 380.11 1443.74
Total 26025.97
Small Hydro Power 250 42.25 4528.05
Bagasse (Cogeneration) 250 374.70 9075.50
Biomass
Non-Bagasse
Power 100 41.93 704.74
(Cogeneration/Captive Power)

Total 9780.24
Waste to Power 2.00 0.00 138.30
Total 15602.00 5978.47 75760.66

2. Off-Grid/ Captive Power (Capacities In MWEQ)

Waste to Energy 18.0 6.58 178.73
Biomass Gasifiers 1.00 0.00 163.37
SPV Systems 200 171.70 843.11
Total 219.00 178.28 1185.21

(Source: MNRE - Physical Progress Achievements in 2018-2019 and Cumulative Achievements up to

March 2019)

The Indian Government has increased the target of renewable energy capacity to 175
GW by the year 2022 which includes 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from

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bio-power and 5 GW from small hydro-power. At this time India’s cumulative installed
renewable power capacity is 75.76 GW including, Wind Power 35.28 GW, Solar Power 26.03
GW, Biomass Power 9.78 GW, Small Hydro Power 4.53 GW, and Waste to Power 0.138 GW
(http://mnre.gov.in) as shown in Fig 1.3.

6%
13 % Wind Power

47 % Solar Power
34 % Biomass
Power
Hydro Power

Fig. 1.3: Total Renewable Energy Installed Capacity in India (March 2019)

1.4 Solar Energy and its Applications

All forms of energy generate from the sun and it is the prime source of all conventional
sources of energy. Among all non-conventional energy resources, solar energy is an essential
resource of sustainable energy because of its availability around the earth, abundance in nature,
and sustainability. Nature of the solar power based resources are a clean, eco-friendly energy
source, inexhaustible, silent and maintenance free (Goswami et al., 2000) and it is a better
option for power supply especially in remote areas of India.

Sun provides about 1353 W/m2 of energy flux outside the mean interface of the earth's
atmosphere. The solar energy potential of our country is more than 5000 trillion KWh for every
year. India is blessed with abundant solar radiation with a mean daily illumination intensity in
the range of 3 to 5 KWh/m2 and with about more than 275 clear sunny days in a year
(http://mnre.gov.in). This much of solar energy in a single year is very high compared to the
possible energy output of all of the fossil fuel energy reserves in our country. Solar energy
offers a wide variety of applications to harness this available energy resource.

Nowadays, there are two major approaches presently in use to harness solar energy,
namely solar energy to electricity by the photovoltaic cells and solar energy to solar thermal
energy conversion as shown in fig 1.4.

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 Solar Energy

Solar Thermal Solar Photovoltaic

Solar Solar Solar Solar Solar Solar

Cooking Drying Water Heating Distillation Lighting Refrigeration

Fig. 1.4: Applications of Solar Energy

Out of various solar energy harness processes, the conversion of solar radiation into
thermal energy is the most simple and efficient way to utilize solar energy for heating
applications. Thermal energy has got several applications such as water heating, desalination,
drying, air-conditioning and cooking, etc. (Al Shamaileh 2010). Thermal energy for heating
applications, solar drying is one of the most and important techniques to harvest solar energy
efficiently. From this point of view, it can be easily said that solar dryer has a large potential
in India to meet up the demand of energy for drying particularly in the domestic and
commercial sector.

The acceptability of such an approach depends on the overall efficiency of the system,
simplicity of operation, design and cost-effectiveness. Amongst photo-thermal systems, solar
dryers are significant due to their lower cost, high usability potential and wider social impact.

1.5 Solar Drying Technology

The drying process is one of the most important application to utilize solar energy.
Drying is defined as the process of removal of moisture by heat and mass transfer up to the
safe limit for storage. It is a traditional method of food preservation, which provides longer
shelf life, lighter weight for transportation and small space for storage (Kothari et al., 2009).

The most traditional technology of the drying process is open sun drying where diverse
crops such as fruits, vegetables, grains, etc. are spread on the ground and turned regularly until
sufficiently dried. The disadvantages of this technique is un-even drying, spoilage due to dirt
and dust, uncontrolled temperature, long drying time, scattered by the insect, rodents, birds,
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animals are being accounted, to overcome this problem many scientists have developed various
types of the dryer for efficient drying of foods without affecting quality. Rate of drying depends
on various parameters such as solar radiation, ambient temperature, wind velocity, relative
humidity, initial moisture content, type of crop absorptivity and mass of product per unit
exposed area (Seetapong et al., 2017).

Solar Dryer

Natural Convection Forced Circulation

type

Direct type Indirect type Direct cum Indirect type

Rack type Chimney type Chimney type

(Both provisions)

Solar Cabinet type Fruit & Vegetable type

Solar Tunnel type Wing-ventilated type

Tunnel or belt Bin type Solar assisted or Hybrid Solar timber dryer

Reticulating Non-reticulating Continuous cross Continuous parallel

type type Flow type flow type

Fig. 1.5: Classifications of Solar Dryer

Energy consumption for drying in developing countries is a major component of the

total energy consumption, including commercial and non-commercial energy sources. It

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consists of a significant part of the world's energy (about 30%) is spent on the agricultural
sector and about 3.62% used for drying of agricultural products (Ghasemkhani et al., 2016).
Harnessing solar energy for drying offers significant potential to dry agricultural products such
as food grains, fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants, thereby eliminating many of the
problems experienced with open-sun drying and industrial drying while saving huge quantities
of fossil fuels.

Many scientists have studied on various types of dryer and various aspects of drying
technology all over the world. Each technique has its own advantages and limitations. There
are several drying technologies such as hot air drying, spray drying, vacuum drying, freeze-
drying, microwave drying for the production of dried powders from food (Sain et al., 2013).
Industrial drying offers quality drying whereas its high cost limits its use.

1.6 Solar tunnel dryer

In solar tunnel dryer, agriculture and industrial products can be dried on a large scale
and small scale. It is a poly house framed structure covered with the UV-stabilized and
polycarbonate sheets. Solar tunnel dryer is cheaper in operating costs and maintains moderate
environmental conditions. Loading and unloading of the products can be done in two ways, 1)
One man can enter to load and un-load the dryer through the door, 2) Two handles are provided
on the upper part of the dome shaped structure for loading and unloading of the agriculture
commodities. The main principle of the solar tunnel dryer is to pass the short-wave of solar
radiation through the polycarbonate sheet and UV-stabilized polythene sheet. The transmitted
solar radiations are absorbed by the inside material and the short-wave radiation turns into long-
wave radiation inside the dryer because of this reason temperature rises inside the dryer. This
effect is called a greenhouse effect and this is the basic principle used in all solar thermal
collectors. Solar tunnel dryer can be useful in most of the climatic conditions (Shinde 2009).
Small size tunnel dryers are also available which is used for domestic purposes. The cost and
maintenance of this kind of dryer are low as compared to mechanical dryers.

The drying process is largely dependent on weather conditions and is very difficult
during the rainy season. Solar dryers work only on day time when optimum solar radiation is
available, but when inadequate solar radiation is available as the solar radiation is intermittent
in nature, in that case, solar dryer does not work properly. Some products need more time for
drying in a tunnel dryer but the sunshine available in the day time is about 8 hours. So the

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process of drying breaks and it will have to continue the next day when sunrise and adequate
solar radiation available. Due to this unevenness in the drying process product quality gets
badly affected. When the solar radiation falls, the drying process going to stop which means
no removal of moisture from the product to the atmosphere. However, in the night time process
being reversed and product will start to gain moisture from the atmosphere.

Due to the gaining and losing the moisture from & to the atmosphere respectively, the
quality of the product decreased. Hence, an increment of the total microbial count will cause
the product to deteriorate.

1.7 Thermal Energy Storage (TES)

The operation of drying and heating can be performed during day time only. To
overcome this, it is required to attach Thermal Energy Storage (TES) devices with solar
gadgets. The stored energy can be utilized during off sunshine hours or under peak load
conditions (Singh et al., 2015). A thermal energy storage system is considered a key tool for
decarbonization since it can issues related to energy efficiency and process flexibility, improve
utilization of renewable energy resources and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Thermal
energy processes are done under three-stage (charging, storing, and discharging). Three kinds
of TES systems are available as shown in fig. 1.6. (Elouali et al., 2019).

Fig. 1.6. Different types of thermal storage of solar energy.

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 (1) Sensible Heat Storage (SHS),

(2) Latent Heat Storage (LHS),

(3) Thermo-Chemical Heat Storage (TCHS)

1.7.1 Sensible Heat Storage (SHS)

Sensible Heat Storage (SHS) is the most economical and easiest form of energy storage.
This only rises in temperature without undergoing any phase transition of a liquid or solid,
using heat capacity and change in temperature of the material during the charging and
discharging process. The amount of heat stored depends on the specific heat of the medium,
the temperature change and the amount of storage material. Generally, water appears to be the
best SHS materials due to its high specific heat and inexpensive. The main drawback of sensible
heat storage is that it required more space to store the heat because of the lower capacity of
heat storage. Zanganeh et al. (2014) found some drawbacks of SHS is a drop of outflow air
temperature toward the end of the discharge period, so it causes complications at the air
discharging point.

1.7.2 Latent Heat Storage (LHS)

Latent heat storage (LHS) stores thermal energy at the time of phase transition from
solid to liquid or liquid to vapor in the form of latent heat of fusion and vaporization
respectively. Latent Heat Storage (LHS) systems into the solar heating system are one of the
hottest trends in solar thermal energy technology due to a large amount of energy that can be
stored in a small volume with small temperature change. Latent heat storage can be used
through solid-liquid, liquid-gas, solid-gas and solid-solid phase transformations. Among all the
LHS systems solid-liquid and solid-solid are mainly used. Latent heat storage has a higher
storage density as compared to sensible heat storage. Various types of PCM are available of
different characteristics as per suitability towards the various applications (Sharma et al.,
2004). PCM considered a promising material for transferring the heat at a constant temperature.

1.7.3 Thermo-Chemical Heat Storage (TCHS)

Thermochemical systems rely on the energy absorbed and released in breaking and
reforming molecular bonds in a completely reversible chemical reaction. In this case, the heat
stored depends on the amount of storage material, the endothermic heat of reaction, and the

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extent of conversion. The major drawback of a thermochemical storage system is the whole
technology is very complex in nature.

1.8 Difference between Sensible Heat Storage and Latent Heat Storage

Fig. 1.7: Difference between sensible and latent heat storage (Mehling and Cabeza 2008)

The fig 1.7 shows, in principle, the difference between sensible and latent heat storage
for the supply and removal of thermal energy. With sensible storage, energy supply results in
a continuous nearly linear temperature increase. However, with latent heat storage, energy
supply results in a temperature increase until the melting temperature of the PCM is reached.
After that point, additional energy supply results in phase change without a further increase in
temperature until the material is fully melted, after which the temperature again increases.

1.9 Phase Change Materials (PCMs)

Amongst above thermal heat storage techniques, latent heat thermal energy storage is
particularly more attractive to other due to its ability to provide high-energy storage density
per unit mass and per unit volume in a more or less isothermal process, i.e. store heat at a
constant temperature corresponding to the phase-transition temperature of PCM. Thus, PCMs
release large amounts of energy upon freezing in the form of latent heat and absorb equal
amounts of energy from the immediate environment upon melting. Various types of PCMs
studied and that can be used for integrating with the solar dryer in the appropriate temperature

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range. During sunshine hours, the maximum temperature within the drying chamber varies
from 40 ºC to 54 ºC (Devahastin and Pitaksuriyarat 2006).

1.10 Classification of PCMs.

A large number of phase change materials (organic, inorganic and eutectic) are
available in any required temperature range from 0 to 150 ºC that is interesting for solar
applications. A classification of PCMs is given in Fig. 1.8. There are a large number of organic
and inorganic chemical materials, which can be identified as PCM from the point of view
melting temperature and latent heat of fusion. However, except for the melting point in the
operating range, the majority of phase change materials do not satisfy the criteria required for
adequate storage media. As no single material can have all the required properties for an ideal
thermal-storage media, one has to use the available materials and try to make up for the poor
physical property by adequate system design. For example, metallic fins can be used to increase
the thermal conductivity of PCMs, supercoiling may be suppressed by introducing a nucleating
agent or a ‘cold finger’ in the storage material and incongruent melting can be inhibited by the
use of suitable thickness. In general inorganic compounds have almost double volumetric latent
heat storage capacity (250 - 400 kg/dm3) than the organic compounds (128 - 200 kg/dm3) (Bal
et al. 2010)

Fig. 1.8. Classification of PCMs.

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1.11 Justification of Work

Drying is defined as a process of moisture removal due to simultaneous heat and mass
transfer. It is a classical method of food preservation; hence shelf life of the product can be
increased and make easy transportation and small space storage (Kothari et al., 2009). The
process of solar drying is only possible when air heating takes place in the range between 10-
30 °C above then outside ambient air temperature, thus suitable temperature range for efficient
drying is 60-70 °C, due to this temperature difference air moves faster through the dryer.
Various types of dryers are commercially available to utilize solar energy. These kind of dryers
works well in day time when, optimum and adequate solar radiations are available but as there
are no solar radiations available or sunshine periods ends then material will again start to absorb
moisture from the atmosphere, therefore it causes adverse effect on quality and deteriorate the
product in terms of increment of total fungal count and total microbes count.

In order to continue the drying process without any threat or the process has to be
carried out continuously up to the end without any internal and external effect, latent heat
storage material should be used, which store the required amount of energy in day time and
release that energy whenever it required, therefore, result in drying time will subsequently
increase. The alternate option of heat storage is sensible heat storage systems, but they are
bulky and the heat-storing capacity is low hence, present research work will be based on the
use of latent heat storage units to reduce the size and drying period. These drawbacks of
existing solar dryers have motivated to develop a heat sink unit that gives the energy to the
dryer after sunshine also with minimum space requirement and good efficiency.

Therefore, in the present study attempt has been made to design and develop heat sink
unit based on PCM for solar tunnel dryer with electrical heater as a backup source which may
solve the problem of drying in off sunshine hours to some extent. Initially, the model works as
a heat sink unit that absorbs the energy in the form of heat and when sufficient temperature
attained in the heat sink unit it will act as a reservoir for the solar tunnel dryer which supplies
the energy in the form of heat. One more advantage of latent heat storage material is, it supplies
the energy at a constant temperature.

Keeping above points in mind the current research work was undertaken to design and
develop a heat sink unit based on PCM for solar tunnel dryer with electrical heater as a backup
source. Specific objectives of the proposed study are as follows:

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 1) To design and develop heat sink unit based on Phase Change Material (PCM) for
solar tunnel dryer.
2) To evaluate the performance of the developed heat sink unit.
3) To assess the techno-economic feasibility of the developed heat sink unit.

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http://mnre.gov.in accessed on 17.09.2019.

http://powermin.nic.in assessed on 23.04.2019

www.eia.doe.gov/iea/.Projections

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