Renewable Energy 21 (2000) 117127 www.elsevier.

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Drying of apricots in a rotary column cylindrical dryer (RCCD) supported with solar energy
C. Sarsilmaz a,*, C. Yildiz b, D. Pehlivan b
a

Frat University, Technical Education Faculty, 23119 Elazg Turkey , b Frat University, Engineering Faculty, 23279 Elazg Turkey , Received 27 January 2000; accepted 17 February 2000

Abstract Rapid deterioration of fruits and vegetables necessitates their consumption in a limited area. The solutions to this problem may be provided by technological precautions, which not only increase economic eciency but also motivates agricultural developments. Among the technological operations applied to increase the market life of the foods, drying operation is of prime importance which is applicable to almost all the agricultural products. In this work, drying of apricots in a newly developed rotary column cylindrical dryer (RCCD) equipped with a specially designed air solar collector (ASC) was investigated to nd optimum drying air rate and rotation speed of dryer, to maintain uniform and hygienic drying conditions and to reduce drying times. For this purpose, the changes in the moisture contents of the Sugarpiece (Sekerpare) foods were studied. Drying is an operation of prime importance used for almost all the agricultural products. Type apricots dried in the present dryer were compared to those of the same type apricots dried open on the ground. It was shown that co-operation of RCCD and ASC increased drying rate, reduced drying times and rotation of drying chamber provided gains in both time and labour. 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Drying is dened as reduction of moisture from the products and forms an
* Corresponding author. 0960-1481/00/$ - see front matter 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 6 0 - 1 4 8 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 7 7 - X

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ultimate way for conservation because the moisture present in the product is decreased to the levels that discourage decay. In contrast to those conserved with other methods, dried foods gain condensed features in terms of nutritional components. In the studies on drying, workers are trying to bring more contemporary applications instead of usual drying, because natural drying on soil presents many hygienic and economic problems. Among the methods of drying, the most economical one after natural drying is that applied with air heated by solar energy. Apricot trees can grow over all the ve continents of the world and annual production levels exceed 2 million ton. France, Spain, Italy and Greece are fresh apricot producers. Hungary, Morocco, Tunisia and Israel are important fresh apricot exporter countries. Turkey, Australia and Iran are major and famous dried apricot exporter countries. Some types of apricots are especially suitable for drying to give a high caloric value and vitamin-rich product. There are two steps in the production of marketable, long-life dried apricots. The rst step is sulphur treatment of fresh apricots with sulphur dioxide or water-soluble sulphide salts such as Na2S2O5 and K2S2O5 to maintain their colour and to eliminate microbial agents causing decay. The second step involves drying by proper methods and removing the nuts from the fruits to obtain a nal product between 25 and 35% weight of the fresh fruits. Primary consideration is given to this step, because it determines the quality of the nal product. The drying processes of the foods have been the subjects of many studies on both theoretical and application grounds. Removing of water from agricultural products is a complex process involving simultaneous heat and mass transfer occurring inside the material. Natural properties of the material to be dried usually limit the choice of application. High initial moisture content, sensitivity to temperature, susceptibility to microbial attack and presence of a skin which may have poor permeability for water molecules are prime factors to be considered in the drying of food stus. These factors usually necessitate the application of gentle drying conditions. The studies on the drying of foodstus may be grouped under three headings according to their primary objective. The rst group covers studies in which drying medium conditions (air temperature, humidity and ow rate) and properties of materials being dried (size, contacting surface area) have been investigated. Leading workers on these topics are Saravacos and Charm [19,20], Komanovsky et al. [6], Labuza and Simon [7], Pointing and Mc Bean [17], Bowden et al. [1], Mazza [9], Mulet et al. [13,14], Puiggali et al. [18] and Weitz et al. [24]. The second group includes studies on moisture transport mechanism during drying. The studies of Vaccarezza et al. [22], Vaccarezza and Chirife [23] and Monr and Can [11] may be mentioned in this group. The investigations on the quality loss during drying constitute the third group of studies with leading workers such as Schadle et al. [21], Mishkin et al. [10] and Mudahar et al. [12]. The studies on the drying of foodstus in thin layers under solar energy were placed on scientic grounds by Hukill [4,5] and Newman [15]. Hukill and Schmidt [5] specially studied the drying of particulate agricultural products. Johnson and

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Dale [26] studied the heat necessary for diusion of water through the solids. Buelow [2] was the rst person to work on the drying by using a solar collector. Philips [16] succeeded in fruit drying with an air solar collector (ASC). Whillier [25], Liu and Jordan [8] and Close [3] also worked on solar air heaters. A vast literature has been collected till date, which could not be mentioned here completely keeping in view the vast varieties of the materials and specic objectives of studies. Sulphur-treated apricots are commonly dried by spreading them over sheets on the soil under the solar radiation. This method of drying takes more than four days even in the warmest days of the summer in the Firat region of Turkey and presents some hygienic and nal product quality problems. Although there are some applications to reduce drying time and to supply hygienic conditions during drying, none of them is protable yet. It is, therefore, the objective of this work to develop a closed rotary column dryer along with a solar air heater and to test its performance for drying of apricots.

2. Experimental Complete scheme of the pilot drying system is shown in Fig. 1. The system is constituted of the following three parts: 1. Air blow region (Fan) 2. Air heater region (Solar collector) 3. Drying region (Rotary chamber)

Fig. 1. The complete drying system.

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The 0.37 kW air fan placed on the air inlet of the solar air heater blowed air at an adjustable rate up to 126 kg/h via its valve. The connection to the solar heater was made using tent fabric cut to t cross-sections of fan outlet and heater inlet. Fan inlet also contained a dry air lter for cleaning incoming air. Solar air heater of the dryer was designed. The collector designed was composed of basically the same elements as present in the conventional at-plate ASC (Fig. 2). The connection to the dryer was again via another tent fabric tube. The drying chamber was a new rotary column cylindrical dryer (RCCD) developed for the purpose of uniform drying in hygienic conditions and to reduce drying times which have been the most important problems in the drying of many kind of fruits and vegetables. The drying chamber, shown as a vertical cross-section in Fig. 3, was constructed from wood in 1100 mm diameter and 1100 mm height cylinder, according to the predetermined drying capacity. Massive wood plates were used to construct top and bottom surfaces, while sidewall was constructed from thin plywood by bending to obtain cylindrical shape. A rectangular slot having dimensions 270 1050 mm was opened on this sidewall, where it faces to the solar air heater for the passage of hot air via tent fabric. Rubber stripes were placed on the edges of the slot to seal the chamber when it was used for sulphur treatment of apricots. The section of sidewall opposite to the air slot was constructed as a door from massive plate with dimensions 700 1000 mm. This door was also sealed for use in sulphur treatment and was used to load or unload the chamber. The rotary column containing holes for the passage of outgoing air was placed vertically in the centre of the drying chamber and rested against upper and lower bearings. Rotation of the column was acquired by a 12 V DC motor and a pulley and belt system. Rotation speed was adjusted via voltage control. Tee proled iron

Fig. 2. The perspective appearance of the air solar collector.

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supports were mounted on the rotary column at equally spaced four levels. These supports served as carriers of ve plates at each level. These plates were easily detachable from the support and approximately 23 kg of fresh apricots were able to load on each plate. 3. Measurements In the experiments, weather temperature and relative humidity, inlet and outlet temperatures of air in the solar collector, the temperatures at the various points

Fig. 3. Vertical cross-section of the drying chamber and rotary column.

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between the plates of drying chamber, humidity, inlet and outlet temperatures of air in the chamber and temperature proles of some selected apricots during drying were recorded and compared with those being dried open on the soil. The velocity of air passing through the system was measured with 0.640 m/s capacity anemometer. Volumetric ow rates of air were measured with an orice and inclined manometer placed on the exit tube of the system. In the measurements of temperatures, J type ironconstantan thermocouples in BS 4937 standard were used with a manually-controlled 12-channel automatic digital thermometer, with reading accuracy of 20.18C. A KM 8004 model humidity thermohygrometer was used to measure humidity levels at various locations of the system. In addition, a separate weather thermohygrometer was used to record environmental humidity. The solar radiation during the operation period of drying system was measured with a Kipp and Zonen piranometer and its CC12 model digital solar integrator. 4. Materials and method The performance of the drying system was tested by performing experiments with two kinds of apricots called Hacihaliloglu and C ataloglu, supplied from Elazg region of Turkey and as an average value, contained 70% moisture. These Sugarpiece type apricots were placed on the plates of rotary column, as received in amounts about 15 kg/m2. After all the plates were loaded, 2-g sulphur/kg apricots was placed in a stainless steel dish of the drying chamber and ignited. Air inlet and outlet ports and rear door were closed. This sulphur dioxide treatment was continued for 3 h. After this period, the ports and door were opened to exhaust the remaining sulphur dioxide. Drying of apricots was carried out after connecting the drying chamber to the solar collector and closing the rear door, with air fan working and column rotating. Experimental parameters were recorded after every hour during drying. The drying of apricots after taking out their nuts was continued in the same manner. Separate runs were also undertaken by applying the common method of sulphur treatment in a closed room and drying on the sheets open under the sun for comparison with the present dryer. 5. Results and discussion The changes in the mass of apricots from both RCCD and open drying during the experiments are shown in Figs. 48. From these gures, it is seen that the moisture contents of apricots being dried on sheets drop to 25% after eight days, while the same level of drying is acquired in four days by RCCD. This shows up to twofold increase in the drying rate and may be explained by the increased convection and higher temperature of the drying air. Although the temperature of the drying air passing through the RCCD decreases with its volumetric ow rate as expected, drying rates of apricots increase appreciably, probably due to

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Fig. 4. The changes in the mass of apricots during drying at 25 kg/h air ow rate.

Fig. 5. The Changes in the mass of apricots during drying at 55 kg/h air ow rate.

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Fig. 6. The Changes in the mass of apricots during drying at 82 kg/h air ow rate.

Fig. 7. The dierences between inter-particle temperature of a single apricot and temperature of drying medium.

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decrease in the thickness of boundary lms around the apricots. Thus, in the drying of apricots by RCCD, airow rate has been the most important parameter as is seen in these gures. The inlet and outlet temperatures of drying air and temperature prole in the apricots during drying may be used to predict the extent of heat transfer to the apricots. This coincides broadly with 2550% of the amount of heat gained in the solar collector as may be seen in Fig. 7 and implies that a greater-sized RCCD can be designed to utilise more of the heat contained in the air. Therefore, using this solar collector with a high eciency of conversion of solar radiation into heat energy, both the highest permissible drying air temperatures, which are below those levels causing the pores of apricot skins to contract, and the prolong drying times are attained, and transport rates of water from the apricots are accelerated by forced convection of air through the chamber. The eects of rotation of the chamber on the drying rates are also shown in these gures. Up to 20% increase in the drying rates is accomplished at the highest possible rotation speed, which is limited by the eect of centrifugal force acting on the apricots to throw them out of the plates. Thus, very high rotation speeds of the drying chamber are not practically applicable and the prime eect of rotation has been the homogeneity of the drying medium and drying conditions in the chamber and uniformity of the nal product, which is a very important parameter while supplying dried apricots to the market.

Fig. 8. The changes in the temperature dierences during drying of air owing through the solar collector and rotary dryer.

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6. Conclusions The drying conditions can be changed and controlled with the newly developed Rotary Column Cylindrical Dryer connected to a solar air heater. The Sugarpiece type apricots can be eectively dried using this system in half the time required to dry them to the 25% moisture levels on the open sheets. More hygienic and homogenous drying conditions are achieved because of the high temperature of drying air and rotation of the drying chamber that give an attractive coloured, uniform and high quality dried apricots. Further work is needed on scaling-up the system to accept at least 500 kg of fresh apricots that may be harvested in an average-sized farm over a day with special consideration on investment and operational costs and overall economy.

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