3 research outputs found
Drying of carrot slices in a triple pass solar dryer
An indirect triple pass forced convection solar dryer was developed and its
performance was evaluated for drying of carrot slices. The drying experiments
were carried out under the meteorological conditions of Coimbatore city in
India during the year 2016. The experimental set-up consists of a blower,
triple pass packed bed air collector (using sand) with wire mesh absorber
plate, and a drying chamber. The air mass flow rate was optimized to 0.062
kg/s. The initial moisture content of the carrot slices was reduced from
87.5% (on wet basis) to the final moisture content of 10% (wet basis) in 6 h
duration. The thin layer drying characteristics were analyzed using twelve
mathematical models available in open literature. The results showed that the
pick-up efficiency of the dryer was varied in the range between 14 and 43%
with an average air collector thermal efficiency of 44% during the
experimentation. The drying characteristics of carrot slices was predicted
with good degree of accuracy using Wang and Singh drying model