Design and Performance Evaluation of an Improved Solar Greenhouse Dryer for Agricultural Products

Abstract

Drying fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants in the open sun works. I have seen the produce get dusty, get infested with insects, and whatever else the weather does that day. A greenhouse dryer solves most of that problem by placing the produce inside a chamber where trapped solar heat does the drying instead. This project takes that established idea. Pushes it a step further. The chamber floor is insulated so heat stays inside of leaking to the ground. The inlet and exhaust vents are moved to create a natural draft. The dryer will be monitored for temperature, humidity, moisture loss, drying rate, and thermal efficiency. A parallel batch of produce dried in the sun will run at the same time as a benchmark. If the changes work as expected, the chamber will dry the produce faster, use the sunlight more efficiently, and return a cleaner, better-preserved product than the sun alone can ever produce.