Accepted Manuscript

Experimental investigation on a solar dryer integrated with condenser unit of split

air conditioner (A/C) for enhancing drying rate

M. Chandrasekar, T. Senthilkumar, B. Kumaragurubaran, J. Peter Fernandes

PII: S0960-1481(18)30119-8

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2018.01.109

Reference: RENE 9714

To appear in: Renewable Energy

Received Date: 14 November 2016

Revised Date: 19 January 2018

Accepted Date: 26 January 2018

Please cite this article as: M. Chandrasekar, T. Senthilkumar, B. Kumaragurubaran, J. Peter

Fernandes, Experimental investigation on a solar dryer integrated with condenser unit of split air
conditioner (A/C) for enhancing drying rate, Renewable Energy (2018), doi: 10.1016/j.renene.
2018.01.109

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

1 Experimental investigation on a solar dryer integrated with condenser unit of split

2 air conditioner (A/C) for enhancing drying rate

3 M. Chandrasekar,*, T. Senthilkumar, B. Kumaragurubaran, J. Peter Fernandes

4 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University, BIT campus, Tiruchirappalli 620024, India
5 *corresponding author Email: shekarpunchu@yahoo.com
6 Abstract

7 In an indirect forced circulation solar dyer, solar thermal energy is primarily used

8 for drying the commodities while electrical energy is used for operating the blower/fan to

9 force air through the collector and drying chamber. In few applications, electrical energy

10 is also being used in auxiliary heater to speed the drying process and assist drying during

11 non sun shine hours. The aim of this research work is to eliminate the use of electricity in

12 the indirect solar dryers by utilizing split A/C condenser unit that is placed outdoors. This

13 idea will eliminate the electrical energy requirement for blower/fan to force air in the

14 drying chamber and enable to use thermal energy dissipated from split A/C system as

15 auxiliary heating source. For this purpose, an integrated solar dryer that uses hot air from

16 split A/C condenser was fabricated in house and the drying behavior of sultana grapes

17 was investigated in the present work. Drying experiments were carried out in the locality

18 of Tiruchirappalli (78.6E & 10.8N), Tamil Nadu, India during summer months of April

19 and May 2016. The use of split A/C condenser outlet cooling air reduced the drying time

20 of grapes by 16.7% compared with open sun drying method. A possibility of 13%

21 increase in solar dryer efficiency was demonstrated due to the integration of solar dryer

22 with A/C condenser unit compared to the conventional indirect solar dryer. From the

23 experimental results, it was found that the exponential model is capable of describing the

24 drying characteristics of seedless grapes. Predicted values of moisture ratio were in good

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25 agreement with experimental values. The exergy analysis indicated increased heat

26 availability inside the dryer chamber.

27 Key words: Solar dryer, energy recovery, split A/C, exponential model, exergy

28 1. Introduction

29 Drying process involves removal or reduction of moisture content in a product.

30 Drying is done to prevent moisture induced deteriorative reactions and decay. Drying

31 reduces weight and volume of the products which decrease their packing, storage and

32 transportation costs. Drying also increases the shelf-life of the products so that they can

33 be made available during off season. Thermal energy is required as input in dryers for

34 which electric heaters or petroleum products are often used. Table 1 shows few

35 applications where drying is essential along with the usually used heat sources.

36 Solar energy is utilized as a source of thermal energy in drying systems as it is

37 clean, abundant and renewable. Solar dryers are classified into three categories as (i)

38 direct solar dryers (ii) indirect solar dryers and (iii) hybrid solar dryers. In a direct solar

39 dryer, the product to be dried is kept under direct solar intensity whereas an indirect solar

40 dryer have a solar collector attached to the drying chamber. Hybrid solar dryers use

41 auxiliary heating systems to assist the dehydration process [1].

42 Grapes contain high amounts of antioxidant compounds that offer several human

43 health benefits. But, grapes are highly susceptible to microbial growth during storage due

44 to their high moisture content. Hence, they must be dry processed in order to prevent

45 spoilage during the shelf life. In many grape growing countries, drying of grapes into

46 raisins is a principal processing method [2]. India has a global share of 4% among the

47 leading grapes producing countries as per Indian horticulture database [3]. The drying

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48 time of grapes is about 8 to 10 days in a traditional open sun drying method and hence

49 there is a threat for deterioration due to contamination and infection with dust and insects

50 respectively. Hence, an auxiliary heating system is recommended to reduce the drying

51 time of grapes [4]. Drying time of grape could also be reduced with pre treatment

52 techniques and by the increasing the drying air temperature [5]. Traditional solar dryers

53 used for grape drying mainly fall under the classification of direct or indirect drying as

54 given in Table 2 [4]. From the literature review [6-20], it is learnt that usually an electic

55 powered blower or fan is used to thrust hot air through the solar collector and drying

56 chamber (Table 3).

57 In an air conditioning system, atmospheric air is used as coolant to dissipate the

58 heat rejected from its condenser. Due to the absorption of the rejected heat, the condenser

59 coolant air is heated which increases its temperature by 10C more than the atmospheric

60 air. This provides an opportunity for recovering heat from the hot air from the

61 air cooled split air conditioning system for drying applications. Hence, Han and Deng

62 [21] used the heat dissipated from a residential air conditioning system in residential

63 clothes dryer. With the developed clothes dryer, they demonstrated a 1.5% saving in the

64 use of domestic electricity in Hong Kong. The benefits of heat recovery from a domestic

65 water-cooled air-conditioner to preheat domestic water were presented by Xiaowen and

66 Lee [22]. Their results clearly support the application of heat recovery from the

67 condenser of the air conditioning systems to reduce the electrical energy use for water

68 heating. In another work, Abdel-Hady et al. [23] utilized the heat rejected in the water

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69 cooled condenser of split air-conditioning system for adjusting the relative humidity of

70 the cold air supplied to the conditioned space. The heat recovered from the condenser

71 reduced the relative humidity of the cold air from 28.4% to 18.3%.

72 Thermodynamic exergy analysis provides information about maximum theoretical

73 useful work or heat that could be obtained when the system is brought into complete

74 thermodynamic equilibrium with the environment. The total exergy of any

75 thermodynamic system is contributed by physical, chemical, kinetic and potential

76 exergies. The physical exergy is due to deviation of temperature and pressure between the

77 system and the environment. Chemical exergy results because of the deviation in the

78 chemical composition of the system from that of the environment. The deviation in

79 velocity and height of the system with respect to the environment are the reasons for the

80 kinetic exergy and potential exergy respectively [24, 25].

81 The energy analysis is based on first law of thermodynamics and is quantitative

82 providing no idea about the quality of energy. Contrary to this, exergy analysis is based

83 on second law of thermodynamics and is qualitative. The energy analysis identifies the

84 wastage of energy within the system while the exergy analysis identifies the possibility of

85 better utilization of energy. Any form of energy with high exergy is considered superior

86 than the energy form with low exergy. Hence, exergy analysis is used as a vital tool to

87 perform realistic engineering evaluations. Also, the increase in exergy efficiency has

88 proved a (i) decrease in the negative environmental impact and (ii) increase in

89 sustainability [26]. In a solar dryer, the exergy of air at inlet and outlet of the drying

90 chamber can be calculated based on their respective temperatures. The difference

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91 between them gives the exergy loss while exergy efficiency is defined as the ratio of the

92 exergy outflow to the exergy inflow of the drying chamber [27].

93 The summary of reviewed literature related to indirect solar dryer is presented in

94 Table 3 which reveals that an electric power is required for operating the fan which

95 would negate the dryer efficiency due to the increase in input energy supplied. The

96 possibility of using heat energy dissipated from split A/C system for grape drying can

97 eliminate the requirement of an auxiliary heating source. In addition to this, a

98 conventional indirect solar dryer utilize electrical energy for operating blower or fan to

99 force the air in the drying chamber can be replaced by the condenser fan also offers an

100 indirect economic benefit. Hence in the present work, a conventional indirect solar dryer

101 without blower integrated with the A/C condenser unit for forcing hot air into the dryer

102 cabinet is proposed. The drying behavior of sultana grapes was estimated experimentally

103 in terms of drying rate and moisture ratio with the proposed dryer by monitoring (i) the

104 weight loss of the grape samples (ii) intensity of solar radiation and (iii) air temperatures

105 at the inlet and outlet of the dryer. Specific exergy of air at the inlet of solar dryer

106 chamber was also assessed to provide support to the idea of using A/C condenser outlet

107 air to enhance the drying rate.

108 2. Experiments

109 2.1 Experimental setup

110 The experimental setup consisted of a 5 Ton (60,000 BTU/h) A/C outdoor

111 condenser unit, flat plate solar heater and a drying chamber. The solar air heater had 2

112 mm thick aluminium 0.6×0.6 m2 absorber plate coated black to maximize the incident

113 solar radiation absorption and was covered with a transparent 5 mm thick tempered glass

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114 cover. The gap between the glass cover and the absorber plate was maintained at 100

115 mm. The hot air from the condenser is allowed to pass between the glass cover and

116 absorber plate where the air temperature is further increased by greenhouse effect. One

117 side of the solar heater was connected to the A/C outdoor condenser unit with the help of

118 a conical duct while the other side of the solar air heater was connected by piping with

119 the drying chamber. The velocity of air leaving the condenser was approximately at 4 m/s

120 which is high enough to dislocate the products to be dried kept in the trays of the drying

121 chamber. Hence, by trial and error method, a small gap of 100 mm was maintained

122 between the conical collecting duct and condenser unit so that the velocity of air leaving

123 the dryer is at a value of 1 m/s. The drying chamber was fabricated with 2 mm thick mild

124 steel sheet having width, depth and height equal to 0.5, 0.5 and 0.75 m respectively. The

125 drying chamber had 3 stainless steel mesh trays for holding the products to be dried and

126 they were placed with a uniform vertical spacing of 100 mm. The drying chamber was

127 provided with sufficient insulation to avoid heat leak to the surroundings. The schematic

128 and photographic view of the in-house fabricated indirect forced convection solar dryer is

129 shown in Fig. 1 & 2 respectively. The details of the drying chamber are shown in Fig. 3.

130 Calibrated K type thermocouples having 0.1C resolution were used for measuring

131 temperatures at various locations namely solar collector inlet, dryer inlet and dryer outlet.

132 A digital weighing balance with a readability of 0.01 g was used to determine the mass of

133 the product before, during and after the drying process. The solar irradiation data were

134 measured with a solar pyranometer (Nunes Instruments, New Delhi) having a range of 0-

135 1800 W/m2 and an accuracy of ±5% on full scale. A digital vane type anemometer

136 (Lutron, Taiwan) was used to measure the wind velocity. The experiments were
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137 conducted on clear sunshine days for 8 hours per day in the location of Anna University,

138 BIT campus, Tiruchirappalli, India. To ensure the correctness and reliability of the

139 experiments results, the experiments were repeated twice. Trial 1 experiment was

140 conducted from 24th-29th April 2016 while Trial 2 experiment was conducted from 2nd -7th

141 May 2016.

142 2.2 Sample preparation

143 The grape products used in the experiments were purchased from the local

144 market. The spoiled ones were disposed and the good ones were washed with distilled

145 water to remove dirt and foreign particles. The washed grapes were then placed in a

146 nylon net mesh to drain out excess water. The water particles adhering on grape surface

147 was then pat dried with cotton clothes. Then, 0.5 kg of grapes were weighed and spread

148 over the tray in the form of a single layer which was then placed in the drying chamber.

149 Same size of drying samples were used in order to compare the performance of the solar

150 dryer that uses A/C condenser air with that of conventional open sun dryer for the

151 experiments. The samples were wrapped with aluminum foil sheets and kept in an

152 isolated environment to avoid any moisture loss in between the subsequent days of

153 experiments.

154 3. Mathematical models

155 The moisture content (M) on dry basis was estimated using

m  md
156 M (1)
md

157 where m is the mass of the product to be dried and md is the mass of the final product.

158 The instantaneous moisture content was calculated with the help of the Eq. (2)

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( M  1)mt
159 Mt  1 (2)
m

160 where mt is the instantaneous mass of the product that is being dried.

161 The moisture ratio (MR) and drying rate (DR) were calculated using the following

162 equations

Mt  Me
163 MR  (3)
M  Me

M  Mt
164 DR  (4)
t

165 where Me is the equilibrium moisture, Mt is the instantaneous moisture content and t is

166 time elapsed. Equilibrium moisture content (Me) could be determined only under the

167 conditions of constant temperature and air humidity. Due to low values of equilibrium

168 moisture relative to Mt or M [28] and due to the changing air temperature and humidity

169 during, the moisture ratio can be expressed neglecting equilibrium moisture as

Mt
170 MR 
M

171 During drying of gapes, the moisture transport primarily take place from the grape to the

172 drying air by the mechanism of diffusion mass transfer which is governed by Fick's

173 second law. Grapes contain a waxy external peel layer that acts as a resistance to

174 moisture movement and the inner region contains the entire moisture content. The

175 mathematical form of Fick's second of diffusion is [29]

d ( MR) d 2 ( MR)
176 D (5)
dt dr 2

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177 The general solution of Fick's second law is an empirical exponential model which is

178 suitable for describing drying kinetics of materials that undergo shrinkage [28] and do not

179 undergo shrinkage [30]. The solution to the Fick's law with the assumptions of spherical

180 coordinates, constant moisture diffusivity and negligible shrinkage during drying is given

181 by [31]

  2 2 Dt 
6 1  i  
182 MR  2  2 e  r2 
(6)
 i 1 i

Dt
183 For values of more than 0.1, the first term of the above series is considerable
r2

184 compared to the rest of the terms. Hence, the above equation can be reduced as
D
6  2 t
185 MR  e r2
(7)
 2

186 The above exponential model (Eq. (7)) which assumes only the surface resistance with

187 negligible internal resistance is suitable for describing the drying characteristics of

188 seedless grapes [28] and was stated in a simplified form by Herderson and Pabis [32] as

189 MR  ae  kt (8)

190 Curve fitting analysis was used to determine the values of constants 'a' and 'k'. The

191 accuracy of fit could be explained by high value of correlation coefficient (R) and low

192 value of reduced chi-square (2) [33]. The reduced chi-square 2 was calculated as

 MR  MR pre,i 
N
2
exp,i
193 2  i 1
(9)
N n

194 where MRexp and MRpre represent the experimental and predicted moisture ratio

195 respectively. N and n indicate the number of tests and number of constants in the model

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196 respectively. The numbers of constants (n) in the exponential model are two as indicated

197 in Eq. 8.

198 The efficiency of the a solar dryer is expressed as

 mw h fg 
 
t 
199    (10)
( Es  E f  Ea )

200 where mw is the mass of moisture removed during the time interval t and hfg is the latent

201 heat of evaporation while Es , Ef and Ea are the energy inputs from sun, electric fan and

202 auxiliary heating source respectively. In the absence of auxiliary heat supply, the input

203 energy used by a conventional solar dryer is due to the energy from sun and electric fan

204 whereas the input energy for the proposed dryer will be only from sun. Hence to compare

205 the performance of different dryers, relative efficiency can used be as a performance

206 indicator which is defined as

 proposed dryer
207  r (11)
 convential dryer

208 With no auxiliary heat and under identical conditions of moisture removal rate, solar

209 collector area, collector efficiency and solar radiation, the expression for relative

210 efficiency can be reduced as

Ef
211 r  1  (12)
Es

212 The general equation representing the total exergy of a system can be expressed as [25]

213 E sys  E ph  Ec  Ek  E p (13)

214 where Esys is the total exergy, Eph is the physical exergy, Ec is the chemical exergy, Ek is

215 the kinetic exergy and Ep is the potential exergy.

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216 The following assumptions were imposed during the exergy analysis

217 (i) Steady flow

218 (ii) Negligible kinetic energies of the system and environment i.e., Ek =0

219 (iii) Gravitational effects are negligible i.e., Ep = 0

220 (iv) Chemical reactions were absent i.e., Ec = 0

221 (v) Constant pressure

222 The equation for total exergy can then be deduced as given by Eq. (14) which indicates

223 that the total exergy is consisted of physical exergy due to deviation in temperature alone

224 as pressure deviation is neglected.

T 
225 E sys  E ph  U o  To S o  m C p (T  To )  To m C p ln  (14)
 To 
226
For unit mass flow rate of air

  T 
227 e  c p T  To   To ln  (15)
  To 

228 where Cp is the specific heat of air, T and To are the dryer inlet temperature and the

229 reference/environment temperature respectively [34].

230 4. Results and discussions

231 4.1 Dryer operating conditions

232 The drying behavior of grapes under open sun conditions is depicted in Fig. 4.

233 The drying rate was above 0.5 kg/hr during the first 3 days. However, drying rate reduced

234 to 0.4. 0.3 and 0.1 kg/hr during the next 3 consecutive days respectively before the drying

235 curve attained saturation on the 6th day. Hence the dryer operating conditions, i.e., the

236 experimental values of temperatures and the intensity of solar radiation were observed for

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237 6 days. The longer duration of drying of grape was due to the wax external skin layer

238 which acted as a resistance to moisture transport [28]. The reason for the falling rate of

239 drying can be attributed to the decreased moisture content of the grapes in the

240 diminishing phase of drying. Fig. 5 shows the hourly variations in the values of measured

241 temperatures at different locations of the solar drying system, solar radiation intensity and

242 ambient temperature during the experimental days. As there was a wide spread among the

243 experimental values during the experimental days, the averages of these values were

244 shown with the help of trend lines. The results of Fig. 5 reveal that the maximum values

245 of solar radiation and ambient temperature are 1150 W/m2 at 1PM and 43.6 °C at 2 PM,

246 respectively. The maximum measured values of A/C condenser outlet air temperature,

247 dryer inlet temperature and outlet temperature are found to be 52.4, 64.9 and 53.6 °C

248 respectively at 2 PM. It is noted that the supply air to the solar collector (or condenser

249 outlet air temperature) is about 9C more than the ambient temperature. This value is

250 close to the results of Han and Deng [21] in which the coolant air from the condenser of

251 air-conditioning system was heated by 10C more than the atmospheric air.

252 4.2 Drying Characteristics

253 Fig. 6 shows the variation of moisture ratio with drying time of grapes. The

254 discontinuity in the data points due to non sun shine hours between the subsequent days

255 of experiments is represented by horizontal lines. To ensure repeatability and reliability

256 of experimental values, two set experimental trials were carried with the open sun and

257 proposed drying during 24th-29th April and 2nd -7th May 2016.The desired moisture ratio

258 was achieved in 5 days for drying system that uses A/C condenser air and 6 days for open

259 sun drying. Hence it can be concluded that, for an 8 hour experimental session per day,
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260 the final zero moisture ratio was achieved in 40 hours for dryer system that uses A/C

261 condenser air but it was achieved in 48 hours for open sun drying. The enhancement in

262 drying rate of grapes with solar dryer integrated with A/C outlet air can be envisaged

263 with the shift in the data points towards lower scale of drying time compared to the data

264 set obtained with open sun drying (Fig. 6). Thus, the use of A/C condenser outlet air for

265 drying grapes had decreased the drying time by 16.7% compared with the open sun

266 drying.

267 Previous research works [6-20] indicates that the electrical power used for

268 operating the blower/fan in an indirect solar dryer varied in the range of 20 W to several

269 kW (Table 3). Hence with 40 W electric power, 1000 W/m2 solar radiation, 1 m2

270 collector area and 30% collector efficiency, the relative efficiency is calculated as 1.13

271 using Eq. (12) which indicate there is a possibility of increasing solar dryer efficiency by

272 13% due to the integration of solar dryer with A/C condenser unit compared to the

273 conventional indirect solar dryer.

274 Using curve fitting of experimental results, it was found that the drying behavior

275 of grapes could be modeled with an exponential model. It was found that the values of

276 constants 'a' and 'k' varied as the drying characteristic involve a falling rate of drying. For

277 the present operating conditions, the value of model constants ('a' & 'k'), correlation

278 coefficient (R) and the reduced chi-square (2) are given in Table. 4. The variation in the

279 value of constants is attributed to several factors like (i) the type and quality of grapes

280 used for drying (ii) drying air temperature, velocity and relative humidity [2]. The

281 comparison between the experimental and predicted moisture ratio is shown in Fig. 7

282 which revealed that the exponential model exhibited good conformity between
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283 experimental and predicted moisture ratios as they fall around a 45°straight line. This fact

284 support that the exponential model is capable of explaining the thin layer solar drying

285 behavior of grapes.

286 4.3 Exergy analysis

287 Specific exergy or the available energy per unit mass flow rate of air at the inlet of

288 solar dryer chamber was estimated using Eq. (15) and the results of exergy analysis were

289 shown in Fig. 8. The results indicate that the inlet specific exergy increased during the

290 first five hours upto the 2 pm (14 Hrs) and after it undergoes decaying behavior. This is

291 due to the changes in the solar radiation as a consequence of time variation. The solar

292 radiation increased from 700 W/m2 at 10 am (10Hrs) to 900 W/m2 at 2 pm (14 Hrs) after

293 which it decreased to 600 W/m2 at 5 pm (17 Hrs) as illustrated in Fig. 5. Also, it is

294 observed that the exergy inflow was more scattered with the case of solar dryer coupled

295 with A/C condenser unit than the open sun drying. This is because the exergy inflow

296 depends on the environment temperature and the solar radiation in open sun drying. On

297 the other hand, for the solar dryer coupled with A/C unit, in addition to environment

298 temperature and the solar radiation, the heating load on the air conditioner will also

299 contribute to the exergy inflow due to the changes in heat rejection rate with changing

300 heating loads. Exergy analysis indicates that the maximum specific exergy inflow is

301 about 0.78 kJ/kg for the solar dryer coupled with A/C condenser outlet air while it was

302 only about 0.28 kJ/kg for conventional open sun solar dryer. The exergy inflow is

303 increased due to the increase in the dryer inlet air temperature as a result of heat recovery

304 from the A/C condenser outlet air. This result coincides with the observations of Midilli

305 and Kucuk [7] i.e., the increase in the inlet temperature increased linearly the exergy

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306 inflow of the cabinet. Furthermore, this fact reveals the integration of A/C condenser unit

307 with solar dyer to recover the sensible heat rejected in the A/C condenser for increasing

308 the available heat inside the drying chamber will be beneficial for enhancing the drying

309 process.

310 5. Conclusions

311 This paper investigated the viability of recovering heat energy from the air cooled

312 split A/C and its utilization for drying applications. The dryer was designed, fabricated

313 and tested for drying of sultana grapes. Experiments were conducted in the month of

314 April and May 2016 in the location of Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India. The following

315 are the conclusions drawn from the present investigation.

316 (i) The dryer was operated with a maximum solar radiation of 1150 W/m2 and

317 the maximum ambient temperature was 43.6 °C during the solar noon.

318 (ii) The maximum measured values of A/C condenser outlet air temperature,

319 dryer inlet temperature and outlet temperature were observed as 52.4, 64.9

320 and 53.6 °C respectively during the solar noon. With the recovery of heat

321 from A/C condenser outlet air, the supply air to the solar collector i.e., the

322 condenser outlet air temperature was about 9C more than the ambient

323 temperature. Similar results were reported by Han and Deng [21] in which

324 the coolant air from the A/C condenser was heated by 10C more than

325 the atmospheric air.

326 (iii) For an 8 hour experimental session per day, the final zero moisture ratio

327 was achieved in 40 hours for dryer system that used A/C condenser air.

328 The same zero moisture ratio was achieved in 48 hours with open sun
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329 drying. Thus the use of split A/C condenser outlet air for drying grapes

330 had decreased the drying time by 16.7% compared with the open sun

331 drying. Increased dryer inlet temperature due to heat recovery and heating

332 in solar collector were the reasons for achieving lower moisture values in

333 shorter time.

334 (iv) The drying behavior of grapes was modeled with an exponential model

335 i.e., MR  ae  kt which is a simplification of Fick's second law of

336 diffusion. It was observed that predicted values are in good agreement

337 with the experimental values.

338 (v) The exergy inflow is increased due to the increase in the dryer inlet air

339 temperature as a result of heat recovery from the A/C condenser outlet air

340 which indicates the increase in heat availability inside the solar dryer

341 cabinet. Exergy analysis revealed recovering the sensible heat rejected in

342 the A/C condenser will be beneficial for enhancing the drying rate by

343 about 16.7%.

344 Acknowledgements

345 The authors acknowledge the financial support extended by the Technical Education

346 Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP II) to carry out this research work. The authors

347 are thankful to the associate editor and the reviewers for their valuable comments in

348 improving the technical content of the manuscript.

349

350

351

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464 Table Captions

465 Table 1. Heat source used in various applications of drying

466 Table 2. Various types of solar dryers used for grape drying

467 Table 3. Summary of previous research works with indirect solar dryer

468 Table 4 Values of constants (a & k), correlation coefficient (R) and the reduced chi-

469 square (2) during the present work

470 Figure Captions

471 Fig. 1 Schematic of experimental setup

472 Fig. 2 Photographic view of the in-house fabricated indirect forced convection solar
473 dryer
474 Fig. 3 Details of drying chamber

475 Fig. 4 Drying rate of grapes under open sun conditions

476 Fig. 5 Dryer operating conditions

477 Fig. 6 Variation of moisture ratio with drying time

478 Fig. 7 Comparison between the experimental and predicted moisture ratio

479 Fig. 8 Specific exergy comparison

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488 Table 1. Heat source used in various applications of drying

Sl. Application Commodities Heat Source for drying

No.
1 Agriculture crop drying Coffee beans, tea leaves, cocoa, nuts, Heat from burning firewood,
rice, spices, corn, etc propane or oil
2 Food processing industries Dehydration of fruits and vegetables Hot air from electric heater

3 Dairy industries Milk powder, casein Spray driers , Fluidized beds that
uses hot air
4 Saw industries Seasoning of wood and timber Petroleum fuels for steam
generation
5 Textile industries Fabric conditioning Fabric is passed around a series of
steam heated cylinders
489

490 Table 2. Various types of solar dryers used for grape drying [4]

Sl. Types of solar dryer No. of days for drying

No. (Approx)
1 Open sun drying 8-10
2 Rack type solar dryer 14-21
3 Soyagi-Hana type dryer 4
4 Solar cabinet 4
5 Solar dryer with natural ventilation 7-8
6 Indirect type dryer 5-7
7 Solar multiple layer batch dryer 5-6
8 Solar dryer with green house as a collector 10 -15
9 Solar tunnel dryer integral collector 5
10 Hybrid solar dryer 30-40 hours

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492 Table 3. Summary of previous research works with indirect solar dryer

493
Sl. Source to push the hot air inside the drying
Authors Power Supply Rating/Remarks
494 No chamber
1 Yaldiz et al. [6] Radial fans *
495 2 Midilli and Kucuk [7] Fans *
3 Hossain and Bala [8] DC fans 40 W operated by a photovoltaic module
496
4 Sreekumar et al. [9] Axial fans 20W
497 5 Kavak Akpinar [10] Centrifugal fan 0.25 kW, 220 V, 50 Hz
6 Janjai et al. [11] Axial flow fan 220 V, 1 phase, 0.373 kW
498
7 Singh [12] Blower 4 kW

499 8 Banout et al. [13] DC fans Operated by a photovoltaic module

9 Sing and Kumar [14] Centrifugal fan. 0.5 HP, three phase, and 1440 rpm
500 10 El-Sebaii and Shalaby [15] Blower 5.5 HP
11 Shalaby and Bek [16] Three-phase induction motor 0.75 HP, 2.5 A, 390 V, 50 Hz, 2610 rpm
501 12 Fudholia et al. [17] Blower 4.13 kWh
13 Sarker et al. [18] Blower 15 kW
502
14 ELkhadraoui et al. [19] CentrifugalfFans *
15 Sujata et al. [20] DC fans Operated by a 40 W photovoltaic module
503
16 Present work Hot air from A/C outdoor unit No additional power to operate the fan
504 * Not mentioned

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508 Table 4 Values of constants (a & k), correlation coefficient (R) and the reduced chi-square (2) during the present work

Experimental run Schedule a k R 2

Trial 1 Day 1 (24/04/2016) 1.034 0.03 0.99 0.0006

Day 2 (25/04/2016) 1.283 0.05 0.99 0.0005

Day 3 (26/04/2016) 2.027 0.07 0.997 0.003

Day 4 (27/04/2016) 2.135 0.07 0.98 0.0002

Day 5 (28/04/2016) 15.74 0.13 0.98 0.002

Trial II Day 1 (02/05/2016) 1.028 0.02 0.98 0.0001

Day 2 (03/05/2016) 1.078 0.02 0.98 0.004

Day 3 (04/05/2016) 1.729 0.05 0.995 0.0006

Day 4 (05/05/2016) 4.527 0.08 0.997 0.013

Day 5 (06/05/2016) 12.41 0.11 0.99 0.005

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Research Highlights

 Solar dryer is integrated with air cooled condenser unit of split air conditioner (A/C)
 Due to this, electric power required for operating the fan and auxiliary heating is
eliminated
 Drying time of grapes is reduced by 16.7% compared with the open sun drying.
 Exergy in the drying chamber is increased due to recovery of heat rejected from A/C
condenser