Development of an Indirect Solar Dryer with Biomass Backup Burner for Drying Pepper Berries

Abstract

Abstract: The use of solar drying in recent years becomes popular for increasing the quality of agricultural crops especially in developing countries. A wide range of solar dryers is available with various characteristics for drying of crops and food products. A prototype indirect solar dryer with a biomass backup burner was designed and developed for the use of small scale rural farmers to dry their harvested pepper berries. The traditional direct sun drying was only dependent on the availability of solar radiation. It was taking 5-7 days for whole drying process. The results of proposed solar dryer were found to be encouraging. The developed solar dryer took shorter drying time with 11 hours of day time solar radiation and 6 hours of night time with biomass burning. The chemical properties of the dried pepper berries were also found to be within the standards set by American Seed Trade Association. Key words: Crop drying Indirect natural convectional solar dryer Pepper berries Biomass backup burner Solar dryer modeling