Design, Development and Performance of Indirect Type Solar Dryer for Banana Drying

Due to higher prices and shortages of fossil fuels and to reduce the fuel consumption used in the drying process, more importance is given to solar energy sources as it is freely available. For these purposes, an indirect type solar dryer was designed and developed to dry agricultural products. Solar dryer consists of solar flat plate air collector with V-corrugated absorption plates, insulated drying chamber, and chimney for exhaust air. The total area of the collectors is 2 m2. The size of the drying cabinet is 1 m × 0.4 m × 1 m (width, depth, and height). An experiment was conducted to study drying characteristics of banana. The qualitative analysis for drying of banana showed that moisture content of banana was reduced from initial value of 356% (db) to final moisture content of 16.3292%, 19.4736%, 21.1592%, 31.1582%, and 42.3748% (db) for Tray1, Tray2, Tray3, Tray4, and open sun drying respectively. The average thermal efficiency of the collector was found to be 31.50% and that of drying chamber was 22.38%. The temperature of drying air is the most important and effective factor during drying. The humidity of air as well as air velocity is also an important factor for improving the drying rate.