Effect of air inlet duct features and grater thickness on cooking banana drying characteristics using active indirect mode solar dryer

Abstract

The effect of air inlet duct area of an active indirect mode solar dryer on drying of cooking banana was studied. The factors considered for the experiment were: air inlet duct area and grater size of the product. The factors were considered at five different levels using the Central Rotatable Composite Design. The air inlet shapes considered were: square, rectangular, circular and triangular, while the product sizes were 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 mm respectively. The experimental design gave a total of 52 runs for each experiment. The experiment was replicated three times with sun drying of the product as control. Data were obtained on a two hourly interval between 8:00 am to 6:00 pm on each drying day. Drying was achieved between 9 to 26 hours of drying, as compared to the control, which was between 15 to 37 hours depending on the grater size. The dryers were able to conserve between 26.67 to 37.84 % of the drying time for the products. The air inlet duct area had significant effect on the drying rate of the product at 5% level of significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]