Department of Renewable Energy Engineering, College of Technology and Engineering, Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur, Rajasthan, 313001, India.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Nov;29(52):78887-78900. doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-21344-1. Epub 2022 Jun 14.
Poor grain drying facilities, along with the burden of drying cost, bound the farmers to market their produce soon after harvest. Thus, this research paper intends to study the influences of a novel cylindrical solar-assisted dryer on farmers' income and its impact on the environment. The paper also presents the design and fabrication of a drying system for maize cobs using non-conventional solar energy. The performance of the solar-assisted drying system was also investigated for drying of yellow dent maize cobs. As a very energy-intensive post-harvest process, drying consumes a lot of electricity, which is usually provided by conventional energy. Here, solar dryers are the perfect solution in terms of efficiency, uniform drying of agricultural food products, less drying time, increased marketability of agricultural products, and reducing the load on farmer's pocket for drying. With a high internal rate of return of 66 percent, the designed dryer proved to be technically and economically viable. Compared to open sun drying, the solar drying system produced better quality and drying time results. Compared to other models, the Midilli model fits the experimental maize drying data better, with a coefficient of determination of R = 0.89729. Energy analysis inferred savings of 1352.97 kWh electrical energy and 128.18 liters of diesel fuel plus a reduction of 1.22 t CO per annum can be achieved by using this dryer.
粮食干燥设施简陋，加之干燥成本的负担，迫使农民在收获后尽快将农产品上市。因此，本研究旨在探讨新型圆柱形太阳能干燥器对农民收入的影响及其对环境的影响。本文还介绍了使用非传统太阳能为玉米穗设计和制造干燥系统的过程。还研究了太阳能辅助干燥系统对黄玉米穗干燥的性能。干燥作为一种非常耗能的产后处理过程，消耗大量电力，而这些电力通常由传统能源提供。在这里，太阳能干燥器在效率、农产品均匀干燥、缩短干燥时间、提高农产品市场竞争力以及减轻农民干燥负担方面是完美的解决方案。设计的干燥器具有 66%的高内部收益率，在技术和经济上都具有可行性。与自然晾晒相比，太阳能干燥系统产生了更好的质量和干燥时间结果。与其他模型相比，Midilli 模型更适合实验玉米干燥数据，决定系数 R = 0.89729。通过使用这种干燥器，每年可节约 1352.97 千瓦时电能和 128.18 升柴油，减少 1.22 吨 CO 的排放。
