Natural Convection Solar Dryers for Agricultural Products — A Comprehensive Exploration

Arumugam Balasuadhakar

doi:10.17485/IJST/v14i13.126

Article

Natural Convection Solar Dryers for Agricultural Products — A Comprehensive Exploration

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Indian Journal of Science and Technology

DOI: 10.17485/IJST/v14i13.126

Year: 2021, Volume: 14, Issue: 13, Pages: 1021-1027

Original Article

Natural Convection Solar Dryers for Agricultural Products — A Comprehensive Exploration

Arumugam Balasuadhakar^1*

¹School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Dire Dawa University, Ethiopia.
Tel.: 00251928143114

*Corresponding Author
Tel: 00251928143114
Email: [email protected]

Received Date:21 January 2021, Accepted Date:27 March 2021, Published Date:17 April 2021

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Objectives: To make review on passive solar dryers and its performance of drying agricultural products. Methods: This article focuses on the development in various categories of passive solar dryers in last six years. The different studies carried out in direct, indirect and mixed mode types of passive dryers for drying agricultural products in the year of 2014 to 2020 have been considered this review. Investigations on forced convection solar dryers have not been included in the current paper. The various experimental setups of solar dryers, specimens used for experimentation, measured output parameters and performance have been illustrated. The changes made in construction of solar dryers for improving the performance have also been reviewed. Findings:The mixed mode passive solar dryer is found to be superior in terms of drying time, better utilization of solar energy and efficiency compared to other passive dryers. Novelty: Several review articles have been published in solar dryers. Nevertheless, no comprehensive reviews have hitherto been published on passive dryers in particular. Hence, our current review article focuses on development in passive dryers and its advancements with emphasis on dryer design features, specimen and measured output parameters.

Keywords: Passive solar dryers; Natural convection solar dryers; Direct solar dryers; Indirect solar dryers; Mixed mode solar dryers

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Copyright

© 2021 Balasuadhakar.This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Published By Indian Society for Education and Environment (iSee)