Application of Solar Dryer in Drying Chilli

Nowadays, agricultural products are always being stressed and emphasised by our
government to increase the economic. Solar energy can be used as an important and
environmental compatible source of renewable energy. The use of solar energy for
drying effectively reduces the problems arising from generating energy by conventional
method. Drying is one of preservation technique in processing agricultural product. In
today' s globalization era agriculture product is given great emphasis, the producers
expecting a green technology which lower the cost and economical while consumers
can be benefited by the decreasing of the price. From that, a research based study of
solar application in drying the agricultural product such as chilli industry was carried
out. Though this industry did have a big impact throughout the entire agricultural
product, the demand of dried chilli is increasing. With a help of economical and green
technology, the import of dried chilli can be decreased and also the price can be
maintained. The aim of the study is to design a feasible solar dryer for the small
producer and to be more specific, the project only aim for 1.5 kg chilli per batch in
order to build the prototype. The project scopes include the design development of a
hybrid solar dryer equipped with the thermal storage for a continuous operation. Thus,
in order to reach the project's scopes and objective, all the design processes such as
identification of dryer's requirements, conceptual design, stating the design constraint,
design calculation and specification of dryer. Result shows that the hybrid solar dryer is
equipped with the 0.96 m2 of solar air collector, 169 kg of vertical rock bed thermal
storage and 0.55 m vertical drying chamber in order to dry 1.5kg of chilli continuously
with a help of biomass fuel.