Energy and exergy analysis of solar dryer with triple air passage direction collector powered by wind generator

Abstract

The objective of this study is to thermodynamically investigate the performance of solar dryers by delaying the airflow in the collector. For this reason, a triple air path on a single pass collector with the fan powered by a wind generator was developed and evaluated in a very humid climate. The evaluation parameters were drying efficiency, energy and exergy analysis, sustainability assessment, CO2 mitigation ability and effective moisture diffusivity of dried product. The results showed that the collector efficiency of triple air passage path collector designs improved the direct passage collector by 119 %. The overall collector and drying efficiencies were 8.43 % and 2.6 % higher than the direct flow path collector. The specific energy consumption was 1.1033 kWh/kg while the specific moisture extraction rate was obtained as 0.273 kg/kW, respectively. The average exergy efficiency ranged between 38.09 % and 63.81 % while the waste exergy ratio, improvement potential and sustainability index for the three dryers ranged from 0.00 to 1.13, 7.54 x 10-7 to 2.003 kW and 0.00 to 11.47, respectively. Using the solar dryers instead of the coal-powered dryer will mitigate more CO2 into the atmosphere in the range of 9741.334 to 21481. 476 tons of CO2 per year while using grid-based electricity will limit the least amount of CO2 in the range of 12.981 to 14.153351.50 tons of CO2 per year.