Recent Developments in Renewable Solar Energy based drying Systems: A Review

Abstract

India is the largest producer of fruits and vegetables, but still about only 2% of the produced fruits and vegetables are processed and safely preserved. The remaining is lost because of poor processing and post harvesting techniques. The intent of this article is to provide an summary of new technologies adapted for safe storage of food products by solar drying. New drying technologies not only preserve food products by drying but also it is cost effective, reduce energy consumption and improve the quality of dried product. In this article the recent design variations, performance of different dryers and various modeling techniques carried out in solar drying of food products have been discussed.