Design And Development of an Active Indirect Solar Dryer for Cooking Banana
Shubham Narendra Sambhare1, Vijay Gore2, Prakash Ingle3
1PG Student, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering (Thermal Engg.), P.R.Pote(Patil) college of engineering & management, Amravati, Maharashtra, Amravati
2Professor, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering (Thermal Engg.), P.R.Pote(Patil) college of engineering & management, Amravati, Maharashtra, Amravati
3Professor, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering (Thermal Engg.), P.R.Pote(Patil) college of engineering & management, Amravati, Maharashtra, Amravati
Abstract- Food preservation techniques such as dehydration and drying are important. Although air drying with the sun's natural heat energy has a lot of advantages, it also has a number of disadvantages. As a result, the dryer, which generates heat using electricity, was born. However, using solar energy as a renewable source of heat for drying is becoming increasingly popular. Active mode (indirect) Solar dryers were conceived and built in Umudike, Nigeria, to dry fried bananas. To investigate if the air inlet area had an effect on the dryers' performance, the dryers were developed with a special focus on it. Square, rectangular, circular, and triangular air intake spaces were classified into five categories and four shapes. A total of 52 dryers were required for the experiment based on the mix of elements and degrees of experimentation employed in the Central Composite Rotatable Experimental Design. Fresh cooking banana samples were purchased from a local market, peeled, cleaned, and sliced to the required thickness for the drying experiment. Open sun drying was employed as a control. On each drying day between January and March, data was collected at a two-hour interval. The dryers reduced the moisture content of the products from 4.53 to 1.57 kg during 9 to 16 hours of drying, while moisture was reduced from 68.97 to 12.00 percent (wet basis). The dryers were able to save over 40% of the total drying time when compared to open-air drying. The efficiency of the dryers varied from 13.85 to 31.84 percent. The dryer's air input area was shown to have a significant impact on the product's drying efficiency.
Keywords: Solar dryers, Air inlet, Moisture content, Drying efficiency, Cooking banana.
