EXPERIMENTAL BANANA DRYING STUDY USING SOLAR DRYER
Alexandre Melo de Oliveira1; André Guimarães Ferreira1; Cristiana Brasil Maia2; Joyce Mattedi Gobbi3; Breno Raphael Lourenço.3
1 Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica de Minas Gerais- CefetMG; 2 Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais. Av: Dom José Gaspar, 500 Coração Eucaristíco; 3 Cefet-MG Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica de Minas Gerais. Av. Amazonas, 7675 - Nova Gameleira
doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-0280
Resumo
Drying is a technique which has been used for a long time for the conservation of food. This single technique consists of removing water or any other type of liquid from a solid material, in the form of steam, through thermal vaporization. Drying of food products has as objective decreasing of humidity levels, an unfavorable environment for the growth of microorganisms, which increases conservation time. Drying can be classified depending on its heating source: solar, artificial or hybrid. Brazil is among the biggest producers of banana in the World, however, post-harvest losses are estimated around 40% of total production. The use of solar dryers for bananas constitutes an interesting alternative, because it uses a renewable source of energy. In addition, Brazil is geographically positioned in a region with significant availability of solar radiation. The present paper made use of a solar cabin type dryer for the drying of bananas. The experimental analysis was carried varying the charge of the dryer and the convection of air from the drying process, aiming at determining the optimal relation between these parameters, through determination of thermal efficiency and drying efficiency. The thermal efficiency of the dryer without load ranged from 7.4% to 25.7%. The results allowed to define the ideal condition of dryer operation to the banana drying, is at maximum load and minimum mass flow rate of air drying. The highest value obtained for drying efficiency was 18.8%.
Palavras-chave: Solar drying; Drying of banana; Energy efficiency