Solar Crop Dryer With Thermal Energy Storage As Backup Heater
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Date
2019-05
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KNUST
Abstract
In this work, solar crop dryer with thermal energy storage device is designed and constructed from locally available materials for drying sorghum.
Thermal energy storage (TES) systems provide several alternatives for efficient energy use and conservation. The thermal energy storage (TES) design incorporated in the solar crop dryer is used to store thermal energy from the sun during the day and dissipated in the night for drying when there is no sun.
The use of thermal energy storage (TES) is an effective way of storing thermal energy and has the advantage of high-energy storage density. In this study, flake salt was used as the storage medium to help store the heat energy in copper pipes.
From the experiment conducted on the thermal energy storage (TES) system, the results show that the dryer reduced the moisture content from about 30% to 11% wet basis in 6 hours. Also, 21% to 13% in solar drying with backup heating mode in 4 hours. The temperature of the absorber chamber with the thermal energy storage system was found to be between 89.8 0C and 72.2 0C which was higher than the temperature without thermal energy storage (40.8 0C to 46.5 0C) for a 24-hour period.