Performance assessment of cabinet solar dryer with heat storage materials for potato drying

Post harvest losses are observed for many agricultural and fisheries products due to improper drying and handling techniques in case of open sun drying method. The work assessed the performance of the solar cabinet dryer for potato slices drying with paraffin wax as heat storage materials under the climatic conditions of India. Accordingly, the evaluation of the developed dryer is carried out in terms of the comparison of the drying durations for three cases as dryer with and without PCM and conventional open sun drying. Experimental analysis revealed that the targeted moisture content for the potato slices (10% wet basis) was realized in 14 sun-shine hours in case of the solar dryer with PCM from initial 80% wet basis. Whereas, during the same duration solar dryer without PCM and open sun drying reached up-to 38.5% and 55% respectively. Notably, during post-sunset hours, a further 10% curtailment in moisture content was observed only in the PCM-assisted dryer, while no significant drying occurred in the other two methods. The drying efficiency was observed as 56.5% in case of the solar dryer with PCM followed by 28.2% and 14.14% attained by dryer without PCM and open sun drying method. Drying kinetics analysis indicated that the Logarithmic model provided the best fit for the moisture ratio data, with a coefficient of determination R² as 0.999442 and 0.998406 for dryer with and without PCM. Furthermore, environmental analysis suggests 0.71 years of payback period with net carbon emission mitigation of 144.2 tons. These findings suggest that the tested solar dryer with PCM is well-suited for drying seasonal agricultural products in arid or semi-arid regions, offering improved drying time and product quality to support small-scale communities.