ANNOUNCEMENTS
The project was to develop a drying chamber to form a setup along with the thermal heat storage system developed by TERI for drying of fruits and vegetables in rural parts of India during hours with less to no sunshine. The setup is designed in a manner that the thermal storage system would be fixed on top of the drying chamber for utilisation of lesser space for the setup. A solar dryer model of 50 kg capacity developed by Society of Energy Environment & Development (SEED) is considered for the initial drying of the food during the hours of sunshine and later is to be dried using the setup with the thermal heat storage system. The drying chamber was designed taking into account, the dimensions of the thermal storage system using a software called Solidworks. A drying chamber of 20 kg capacity was designed facilitated with two hot air inlets at the bottom and two air outlets at the top. The chamber has the capacity to fit two rows of trays, 4 trays on the top row and 4 trays on the bottom row.
Further studies are done on some of the states with high onion production and the districts with maximum tribal population. Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Manipur were taken for this study. The monthly GHI data was collected for each site along with the total sunshine hours per month and the average humidity of the sites per month. It was observed that Maharashtra received an average of 6 months favourable for solar drying of fruits with Thane receiving the highest amount of heat energy (58213 kJ/ day/ drying chamber (SEED)). Similarly, Madhya Pradesh receives an average of 8 months for solar drying of food. Manipur receives an average of 4 months while Karnataka receives an average of 5 months.
Similarly, analysis was carried out for different climatic zones of India. Hot-dry climate received 9 months favourable for solar drying of food, followed by composite, receiving 9 months, then warm-humid receiving an average of 5 months followed by temperate with 5 months and the last, cold climate with an average of 4 months favourable for solar drying of food.
