Performance Analysis of a Solar Dryer Equipped with a Recycling Air System and Desiccant Chamber
Journal Title: Journal of Agricultural Machinery - Year 2013, Vol 3, Issue 2
Abstract
Drying is a high energy consuming process. Solar drying is one of the most popular methods for dehydration of agricultural products. In the present study, the performance of a forced convection solar dryer equipped with recycling air system and desiccant chamber was investigated. The solar dryer is comprised of solar collector, drying chamber, silica jell desiccant chamber, air ducts, fan and measuring and controlling system. Drying rate and energy consumption in three levels of air temperature (40, 45 and 50 oC) and two modes of drying (with recycling air and no-recycling with open duct system) were measured and compared. The results showed that increasing the drying air temperature decreased the drying time and increased the energy consumption in the mode of non-recycling air system. The dryer efficiency and drying rate were better in the mode of recycling air system than open duct system. The highest dryer efficiency was obtained from drying air temperature of 50 oC and the mode of recycling air system. In general, the efficiency of solar collector and the highest efficiency of the dryer were 0.34 and 0.41, respectively.
Authors and Affiliations
M. H. Aghkhani,M. H. Abbaspour-Fard,M. R. Bayati,H. Mortezapour,S. I. Saedi,A. Moghimi,
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP717684
- DOI -
- Views 30
- Downloads 0
Distinguishing Rain-fed and Irrigated Crops in Hamadan Province Using Spectral Indices of Satellite Images
IntroductionRemote sensing methods for mapping farms and crops have been widely used in the last three decades. This method is applied to identify irrigated areas around the world (Alipour et al., 2014), although most of...
Optimization Performance Indices of Diesterol Fuel in Diesel Engine by Response Surface Methodology
Introduction Diesterol is a new speciï¬c term which denotes a mixture of fossil diesel fuel (D), vegetable oil methyl ester called biodiesel (B) and plant derived ethanol (E). Recently, much attention has been paid to t...
Investigating the Mechanical Properties and Degradability of Bioplastics Made from Wheat Straw Cellulose and Date Palm Fiber
During the past two decades, the use of bioplastics as an alternative to regular plastics has received much attention in many different industries. The mechanical and degradable properties of bioplastic are important for...
Diagnosis of Early Blight Disease in Tomato Plant based on Visible/Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and Principal Components Analysis- Artificial Neural Network Prior to Visual Disease Symptoms
Early diagnosis of plant diseases before the occurrence of symptoms can reduce the loss of the yield and increase the quality of agricultural crops. It also reduces the consumption of pesticides, environmental risks, and...
Investigation of the Co-digestion of Chicken Manure with Chicken Intestine and Its Contents and Rumen Contents
Introduction: Almost 18 percent of emitted greenhouse gasses in Iran come from livestock industries, especially from manure decomposition. With the anaerobic digestion of animal wastes, in addition to eliminating its dis...