Fabrication and testing of double-sided solar collector dryer for drying banana

Abstract A double-sided solar collector dryer was designed to be installed on both sides of a drying chamber. The solar collector was tilted at an angle of 15° to the ground and had a total receiving area of 7 m2. After drying banana from an initial moisture content of 68.5% (w.b.) for 5 days, the banana final moisture contents in the dryer and from open sun drying were 17.4% (w.b.) and 27.3% (w.b.) respectively. The highest air temperature in the drying chamber was 62.7 °C and the average temperature was 54.1 °C, which was 13.6 °C higher than from natural sun drying. The high drying rate of the solar collector dryer reduced the banana moisture content 1.3–1.5 times faster than by sun drying. The average thermal efficiency for the dryer and solar collector were 13% and 21.9%, respectively.