Latent Heat Storage System Based Mixed Mode Indirect Solar Dryer for Drying Myrobalan

Authors Deepanka Saikia1, Prakash Kumar Nayak1, N. Sivakumaranb2, Rajesh Kondareddy2,3, K. Radha Krishnan1, Jeet Dutta3
Affiliations

1Department of Food Engineering & Technology, CIT Kokrajhar, Assam, India

2Department of Instrumentation and Control, NIT Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India

3Department of Instrumentation Engineering, CIT Kokrajhar, Assam, India

Е-mail pk.nayak@cit.ac.in
Issue Volume 14, Year 2022, Number 3
Dates Received 25 February 2022; revised manuscript received 24 June 2022; published online 30 June 2022
Citation Deepanka Saikia, Prakash Kumar Nayak, et al, J. Nano- Electron. Phys. 14 No 3, 03022 (2022)
DOI https://doi.org/10.21272/jnep.14(3).03022
PACS Number(s) 44.40. + a, 84.60.Ve, 84.60. – h
Keywords Myrobalan, Solar dryer, Thermal storage, Antioxidant activity, TPC.
Annotation

A mixed mode indirect solar dryer (MISD) was designed witha PCM-assisted polycarbonate glazed sheet covered solar collector and a drying unit for drying myrobalan. The rate of heat loss coefficients was evaluated experimentally with a modified collector design. The novelty of this work is the application of a PCM-energy storage in a conventional solar dryer to reduce the drying time of myrobalan. The thermal storage in MISD increases the continuous thermal supply period by 19±4 % compared to without thermal storage during the off-sunshine hour. The drying time of myrobalan was reduced to 12 h in MISD compared to 41 h in the OSD method. This results in better dryer performance and reduced drying time. The total useful energy was 61.18 MJ, and 0.206 MJ was reduced energy loss. The dryer's average temperature and relative humidity were measured as 65.2 °C and 8.83 %, respectively. The results show that exergy efficiency increases, and exergy loss reduced in the MISD. An intensive experimental study on the thermophysical properties of TES materials can be an additional advantage. Antioxidant values and the total phenolic content were evaluated by different methods. The best color and lower hardness values were achieved for a sample dried in MISD, as compared to other TD and OSD methods.

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