Drying of Selected Spices in a Solar Assisted Fluidized Bed Dryer Integrated with Liquid Desiccant Air Dehumidifier

Abstract

newline Demand for value-added spices all year round has warranted suitable post-harvest newlineprocessing since most are non-perennial by nature and perishable owing to enzymatic or newlinemaillard reactions and pathogenic microbial contamination. The food loss and food waste newline(25% of global agro-produce) causes significant losses in embedded energy (~15 EJ/year), newlinefinancial ($120 billion/year), and environmental (8% of GHG emissions). Unlike other newlineindustrial needs, drying plays an important role in ensuring global food security through newline newlinesafe storage. Drying involves the minimization of biologically active water in fresh agro- newlineproduce up to the safe water activity (0.4-0.6). An optimized drying technique is needed to newline newlinebe chosen critically because one particular drying condition suitable for a group of spices newlinemay be detrimental to others. Therefore, the literature was reviewed rigorously to find out newlinethe permissible ranges of influencing drying parameters for major spices and up-to-date newlinetechnological advancement to alleviate the shortcomings of conventional drying newlinetechnologies. newlineHot air fluidized bed drying (FBD) has an exclusive role in the evolution of industrial newlinedrying for delivering uniformly dried products owing to ability in the relative ease of newlineproduct handling, intensive mixing, product-air interfacial surface contact (3,000-45,000 newlinem2 newline/m3 newline), and high heat capacity (~106 J/m3 newline newline-K). The higher energy cost and associated newlineenvironmental impacts are the major drawbacks of conventional FBD, as it requires a newlinehigher mass flux of hot air to fluidize the product. It is critical to afford excessive energy newline(mostly fossil fuel) and environmental cost for micro-small and rural industries like the newlinefood processing sectors. In fact, the grid electricity transmission is not adequate in rural newlineareas and mountainous terrain. Referring to the UN Climate Change Summit-2021 newline newline(COP26, Glasgow), 31% of the global anthropogenic emissions originate from the agro- newlinefood systems and out of which 4% is contributed by the food processing sector. The newline newline