IJESD 2013 Vol.4(6): 658-661 ISSN: 2010-0264
DOI: 10.7763/IJESD.2013.V4.433
DOI: 10.7763/IJESD.2013.V4.433
Drying of Limes in Oman Using Solar Tunnel Dryers
M. A. Basunia, H. H. Al-Handali, and M. I. Al-Balushi
Abstract—A solar tunnel dryer having 16 meter long and 2
meter width was designed and constructed to dry about 300 kg of
freshly harvested limes per batch. The nearly one-third area of
the tunnel base was used as the solar collector and the
remaining two-third area as a dryer. The drying temperature
could be easily raised by some 5-300C above the ambient
temperature inside the tunnel at an air velocity of
approximately 0.15 (ms-1). The test was conducted with about
300 kg freshly harvested limes with initial moisture content of
86.0% (wet-basis) to analyze the performance of the dryer. The
limes were dried to a final average moisture content of 10.0%
(wet-basis) within 7 days (70 hours). The results indicated that
the drying was faster in solar tunnel dryer ( 7 days) than the
natural open air sun drying (> 3o days). The improvement in
the quality of limes in terms of color, brightness and flavor was
distinctly recognized.
Index Terms—Moisture content, tunnel dryers, limes.
The authors are with the Department of Soils, Water and Agricultural Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (e-mail: basunia@squ.edu.om; hhandali@squ.edu.om; moha99@squ.edu.om ).
Index Terms—Moisture content, tunnel dryers, limes.
The authors are with the Department of Soils, Water and Agricultural Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (e-mail: basunia@squ.edu.om; hhandali@squ.edu.om; moha99@squ.edu.om ).
Cite:M. A. Basunia, H. H. Al-Handali, and M. I. Al-Balushi, "Drying of Limes in Oman Using Solar Tunnel Dryers," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 4, no. 6, pp. 658-661, 2013.
General Information
- ISSN: 2010-0264 (Print); 2972-3698 (Online)
- Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Environ. Sci. Dev.
- Frequency: Bimonthly
- DOI: 10.18178/IJESD
- Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Richard Haynes
- Managing Editor: Ms. Cherry L. Chen
- Indexing: Scopus (CiteScore 2022: 1.4), Google Scholar, CNKI, ProQuest, EBSCO, etc.
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