Optimal simulation approach for tomato flakes drying in hybrid solar dryer

This study presents an innovative, economically viable and energy-efficient greenhouse solar dryer integrated with a solar air heater. The focus is on drying tomato flakes using advanced 3-dimensional computational models based on Finite Element (FE) methods. The dryer's bed incorporates a unique mixed heat storage material comprising paraffin wax and black-painted gravel. The Finite Element approach allows for the simulation of a hybrid greenhouse dryer, which enables a detailed examination of mass transfer within the dryer and the transient behavior of heat transfer during tomato flakes drying using COMSOL Multiphysics @ 6.0 software. A complete assessment was performed by creating a 3-D computational model of hybrid greenhouse dryer of tomato flakes drying considering heat-mass transfer, environomic and drying kinetics perspectives. The drying chamber consistently maintains temperature and humidity levels, with the highest temperature (55.3 degrees C) and lowest humidity (33.2%) observed during the mid-day hour. Remarkably, the drying efficiency reaches 38.04% by reducing the initial moisture content from 96% to 1.28% in just five hours. The system demonstrates notable energy efficiency, boasting exergy efficiencies of 83.2% and 56.3%, respectively. The total embodied energy is calculated at 1591.07 kWh and the proposed dryer system allocate funds to support its operation is 273.43 USD. Additionally, the study compared the proposed model with twelve other mathematical models for drying of tomato flakes. The results showed that the proposed model performed better than the others. The impact analysis highlights the hybrid greenhouse dryer's suitability for mitigating post-harvest losses while emphasizing environmental sustainability. [GRAPHICS] .