FABRICATIONANDEXPERIMENTALINVESTIGATIONOFPCMCAPSULESINTEGRATEDIN SOLARCABINET DRYER

Solar dryer with heat storage material can reduce the drying time and assist to maintain thebetter quality of medicinal plant. Solar cabinet dryer integrated with thermal storage system byusing phase change material (PCM) for drying of tubular roots was designed, fabricated andtestedatDepartmentofUnconventionalEnergySourcesandElectricalEngineering,Dr.Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola. The system consists of flat plate solar collector,transparent cover, absorber plate, insulation, drying chamber, chimney and heat exchanger withPCMcapsulesplaystostoreheatduringsunshinehoursandreleaseitduringnon-sunshinehours. In present heat storage units paraffin wax used as a PCM encapsulated of thirty fouraluminum cylindrical capsules were equally spaced at a distance of 2.5 mm. The inlet and outletairtemperatureandthermalstorageefficiencyofthesolardryersystemhasbeenstudied.Experimental results indicated that the average drying efficiency of solar dryer was 15.6 percentand 18.8 percent and the average thermal energy storage efficiency was 57.01 per cent and 57.20per centinsummer andwinter respectively.Itrevealsthattemperature of dryingchamberincreased by 12.64°C and 15.03°C over the average ambient temperature in summer and winterrespectively.Fromthestudyitisconcludedthattheheatstoragematerialstoredmaximum amountofheatduringsunshinehoursinsidetheairheaterthroughheatexchangeranddryingtakesplacemoreeffectively duringnon sunshinehoursforextended timeof4 to 5 hours.