To provide solution for entire year commercial solar drying of food commodities
Abstract : Sun drying is perhaps one of the oldest methods of food preservation that has been practiced for centuries. The direct usage of solar radiation which is renewable and abundant favours farmers that harvest and process at small quantity. As technology advances, an alternative to sun drying evolves to maximize the potential of solar radiation and this technology is known as solar drying. Solar drying has several inherent advantages over sun drying namely faster drying rate, better protection of products, reduce risk of prolonged drying, lesser risk of product spoilage and improvement in product quality. Various studies have reported the application of solar drying for fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds, beans, herbs, spices and medicinal plants. Product quality improvement is definitely associated with solar dried products as compared to sun dried and to some extent oven/hot air dried products. However, uptake of this technology especially among farmers in developing countries are still low despite the many years of research and technology advancement. Nonetheless, some successful application of solar drying have been reported in countries such as Indonesia, Laos, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Brazil, Uganda, Kenya and Senegal.
? While improving productivity is key, reducing the existing high rates of global food loss and waste, including post-harvest loss, along the various production and supply chains, will play a key role in tackling the problem of food insecurity in SSA and ESA.
? Solar driers exist for treating timber, although they are not discussed here. Fruits are ideal for preservation by drying since they are high in sugar and acid, which act to preserve the dried fruit.
? Existing infrastructure may be available to facilitate marketing dried produce. The expected market price will influence how much can be invested in a drier.
? Hot air drying has been associated with several quality damaging issues such as case hardening, colour deterioration, high degree of shrinkage, degradation of nutrients, flavour loss and etc.
? Solar drying also helps to eliminate the disadvantages associated with natural sun drying such as prolonged drying duration, low drying throughput, contamination by foreign matters/debris, rewetting by rain droplets and low drying temperature (ambient condition).
? Sun drying has its inherent disadvantages owing to the unpredictable weather conditions, which often lead to quality deterioration.
• An efficient, affordable and a self-sufficient intelligent energy system that will be applied to agriculture for storage or drying purposes by measuring the energy needs for the optimal drying system.
• The level of air moisture carrying the capacity can be increased with a purpose to trigger a drying process.
• The power that will be required for all SSD operational purposes are internal ambient conditioning, sensing external environmental conditions, the energy stored in the battery for nighttime usage, closed control system, data processing and analytics, and all other mechanical/electronic components.
? The quality aspects of solar dried products are not widely reported as compared to the design and performance aspects of solar dryers.
? Solar tunnel dryer integrated with solar air heater and sensible heat storage material represents a more drying efficiency than mechanical dryers.
? Solar drying has several inherent advantages over sun drying namely faster drying rate, better protection of products, reduce risk of prolonged drying, lesser risk of product spoilage and improvement in product quality.
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