Design and Development of Solar Photovoltaic Thermal SPVT Crop Dryer for Intermittent Drying

Abstract

newline The additional resources required to support population growth needs exploration of more resources beyond fossil fuels that lead to global warming and climate change. The United Nations has formulated action plan to preserve pristine environment and promote development.India, the second largest producer of fruit and vegetable globally, suffers 16 to 18% post-harvest loss from harvest to consumption. The food commodity loss has dual effect of food shortages and fuel depletion that otherwise would be conserved for future use. Agri-product shelf life is improvedon removal of excess moisture that causes microbial spoilage.The high market demand for dried guava opens up new opportunity to farm community giving good returns. newlineThe electrically dried guava fruit consumes 8.5 kWh/kg, with a carbon-footprint of 5.5 kg. There is need to avoid wastage of precious resources and mitigate carbon footprint through optimal design. The solar energy is viable to address energy needs in tropical regions with sunlight throughout the year. The electricity and process heat required in drying are taken care by SPV assisted thermal system currently developed by integrated SPV and solar thermal collector. The novelty of this work is its intermittent drying process that yields efficient production of highqualityguava fruit at affordable investment. newlineThe intermittentsolar drying saves large agricultural produce by suitable interventions to meet electric and thermal energy needs of domesticagro industry. The reported work on SPV-assisted crop dryer focuses on computationalstudy for predictions and experimental investigations for real-time implementation of dryingsystem.The preliminary design involved sizing of solar cabinet and optimizing operational parameters throughTaguchitechnique using ANOVA and MATLAB. newlineThe experimental validation evolved suitable conditions for solar drying of local guava fruit with 5mm thickness, intermittent ratio of 0.75,air temperature range42- 65°C, and flow rate of0.03 kg/s to be safe drying parame