Development of low cost solar dryer for Oman conditions

Abstract

Solar dryer is one of the technologies which are used in many countries to dry the agricultural products. In the present wok, development of low cost pebble bed solar dryer was made to suit for Oman weather conditions. The system consists of solar collector with pebbles for heat storage and cost effective food drying chamber. Initially, dryer performance was studied with banana and study results revealed that maximum dryer room temperature of 68�C and the moisture loss content of 52%. In addition, dryer chamber efficiency of 34% was achieved in the study. Overall, the study results indicated that late evening drying up to 7PM was noticed and the developed dryer system gave better results than dryers available in the market. � Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.