Development of a direct solar powered dryer for drying cultivated banana in community scale

Abstract

Reducing the moisture content of cultivated banana is an important stage in maintaining product quality. This can be done in direct sunlight or with a dryer. This paper presents the development of direct solar dryer for product drying. Followed by an examination of the experiment on cultivated banana drying. To compare the efficiency of the dryer with the open sun drying. Converting solar energy into heat energy by solar collector, then used a ventilation fan installed in the drying chamber, convective heat transfer was carried out in the drying room, 1.20 m. width, 0.80 m. Length, 1.00 m. Height. Grate or tray in the drying chamber use a custom-made stainless steel grid, size 55x75 cm., 2 sheets with hinged cabinet doors the surrounding walls, including the floor, are insulated in the size of 2.5 cm thick, incubator structure is made of aluminum, 1.5 mm thick, black painted to absorb heat well. A study of the heat dissipation of both cabinets showed that solar drying cabinets had lower heat dissipation than that of a wind dryer. High temperature range was between 31-78 degrees Celsius, during the experiment from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, the average temperature was 62.68 degrees Celsius. The advantage of this dryer is no contamination during the drying of the banana, and renewable energy from solar energy is used.