Fundamentals and performance evaluation parameters of solar dryer

Abstract

Solar energy is freely available clean and renewable energy, and available to all. Researchers have developed various technologies to utilize it in various ways such as solar PV technology to generate electricity from solar radiation, solar dryers for drying crops, solar desalination, and solar thermal technology for electricity generation, cooking, etc. This chapter focuses on the utilization of solar energy for vegetable/crop drying. Crop drying is essential for developing countries so that they can provide food security to their citizen in adverse climatic conditions. The solar drying technology is economical and useful for all the developing nations. It has various advantages over open sun drying practices, which are generally performed in various developing nations from an ancient era. This piece of work provides access to various factors and parameters such as dryer efficiency, collector efficiency, moisture ratio, drying period, SMER, etc., which are important in the evaluation of the performance of different types of solar dryers.