Experimental Studies on a Solar Drier System with a Biomass Back-up Heater
This article presents the experimental studies on a natural convection solar drier integrated with a biomass back-up heater. Experiments have been conducted to test the drying performance of coconut under (1) a solar green house dryer integrated with a biomass back-up heater, (2) a
biomass heater, (3) a solar green house dryer, and (4) open sun drying. It is found that to reduce the moisture content from 53.4 to 9.2% for drying coconut requires 26 h in a combined solar green house dryer coupled with a biomass back-up heater, 30 h in a biomass heater mode, 44 h in a solar
green house dryer, and 88 h in open sun drying. Drying efficiency of the solar drier was estimated to be about 19%.
Keywords: biomass heater; coconut; flue gas duct; green house drier; thermal efficiency
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Centre for Energy and Environmental Science and Technology, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India 2: Department of Mechanical Engineering,National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India
Publication date: 01 March 2013
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