Development and Optimisation of Drying Parameters for Low-Cost Hybrid Solar Dryer Using Response Surface Method

Abstract

After harvest and storage problems are major dilemma, which requires to be looked into carefully in developing nation like Nigeria. This paper presents a development of low-cost hybrid solar dryer for food preservation with the objective of setting optimum drying parameters for the preservation of cassava and tomato products. The work was carried out by designing, constructing and finally evaluating the hybrid dryer for effective performance. The optimization of the drying parameters was done using composite technique (Response surface method). The assessment of the dryer shows that 150 Kg cassava mesh and 5000 grams of tomato with 35% and 94% moisture content, respectively were dried to 100 Kg and 334 g with 10% moisture level for 4 hours and 11 hours respectively, for cassava and tomato. The optimization result shows that the dryer will perform optimally with drying temperature of 62°C and 48°C for cassava and tomato respectively with 24% and 91% moisture uptake. Therefore, sustainable techniques for preservation of food are essentially required. Hybrid solar dryer is an alternative to consider in the situation.