SOLAR DRYING

Solar drying

Presented By :
Sanjay.r.p 34
Jigar.n.p 41
Sachin.b.p 31
Jatin.l.p 52
Akash h.s. 04

Roll no.

Why the drying is reqired ?

About 20% of the food production is wasted during post
harvest period.
The agricultural product losses are due to
spoillage,contamination and attack by insects during
harvesting and storage.
The food preservation can be done by traditional method
is drying of food product in sun.
It removes moisture from material.
but the natural sun drying is not sufficient because
there is many disadvantages.

Disadvantages of natural drying

1.
2.
3.
4.
.

There is no control over a drying rate,and it is an non uniform drying.

It may cause over drying of food products,which causes discolouration,
nutrition changes and loss of germination etc.
Too slow drying may cause growth of fungi and bacteria causing food
spoilage.
Moisture content can not be controlled.
So the more efficient solar dryers are used as dryer.

Types of solar dryers

1. Natural convection or direct type
solar dryer.
2. Forced circulation solar dryers.
.

It is further classified in two types:

1. Direct gain type.

2. Indirect gain type.

1. Natural convection solar dryer.

(direct type solar dryer).

These are passive type solar dryer which do not use any external
power for running a fan or blower.
It has an enclosed cabinet having transperent glass covers at the
top and insulation is provided at bottom. The perforeted tray is
provided for keeping the food as
Shown in following fig. of natural convection solar dryer:

Natural convection solar dryer:

The inner surface of the cabinet is coated black and a door is provided at
the rear of the cabinet. Ventilation holes are provide at the bottom for fresh
air to enter. The ventilation holes are also provided on the upper side of the
layer for hot moist air to escape by natural convection.

Temperature 50 c to 80 c are usually attained in the dryer and the drying

time ranges from 2 days to 7 days depending on type of food product is to be
dried.

Uses: it is suitable for drying the food products on small scale e.g.
conversion of grapes into resins,drying of chillies, apricoat,dates etc.

2. Forced circulation solar

dryer.
1. Direct gain type:
.
.

This types solar dryer are used for large scale drying of food
products.
Forced convection type solar dryer is use direct solar rediations.

2. Indirect gain type:

.
.

Forced convection or indirect gain type solar dryers are very

efficient and faster.
In this type in order to control the temperature of drying it use
some kind of thermal storage.

1. Direct gain type :

it has large number of perforated trays on which the

products are kept for drying.the top of the dryer is coverded

by transparent glass and the side is covered with plastic
sheet on which solar radiations fall. The products get direct
solar heat. The system uses a bolwer to draw the humid air
which causes the fresh air to enter due to the vaccum
created inside the dryer.
Uses:these type of dryers are used for drying the

timber, bamboo,grains etc.

2. Indirect gain type:

It consist of an array of solar collectors in which the surrounding air is forced by a

blower. The heated air is supplied to the dehydrator for drying the products. The excess
hot air is supplied to rock storage tank where the excess solar heat can be stored.
The hot air temperature to the dehydrator can be controlled by fresh air with the
help of dampers and temperature controllers.
Uses:these can be used at low as well at high temperature drying of large

quantity of agricultural products like drying of food

grains,paddy,tea,coffee,tobacco etc.

Important Conclusions
Experience over the past four decades has shown
that inspite of high potential of solar drying it
has not taken off. Some of the reasons are;
Systematic work on solar dryer has been done
only in few countries.
Solar dryer has not been developed as a system.
In industralized countries, there is great interest
towards solar drying. However, neither the
temperature nor the heat requirement can be
achieved with solar collector.
Solar drying is considered more applicable to low
temperature in-storage type drying in tropical
and subtropical countries.
Pre-healing of drying air in batch dryers has been
demonstrated to be techno-economically viable.
Solar drying should be disseminated for medium
and low scale farmers for drying cash crops.
To popularise solar drying, pilot demonstration
followed by training and workshop will have to be

REQUIREMENTS FOR SOLAR ENERGY ASN

AALTERNATIVE OF HIGH ENERGY DRYERS
Capacity of solar dryers must be
equivalent to fossil fuel based dryer
The labour input for solar dryer
operation should not increase
Solar dryer operation must be
independent of weather conditions
With solar dryer the quality of dried
product should not be lowered
The operating conditions should be
reliable
Total drying cost should not increase

Thank
you