INVESTIGATING THE PERFORMANCE EFFICIENCY OF A PV POWERED SOLAR DRYER (A CASE STUDY OF DAMATURU, YOBE STATE – NIGERIA.)

F. M. Mustapha and A. Adamu

Department of Physics,

University of Maiduguri

Email: fatimamuhammadmustaphaonline@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

In this paper, samples of chili and tomato were used to focus on performance comparison between open air drying and inside a PV powered solar dryer. The hourly system performance of the PV powered solar dryer has been measured for several days in Damaturu (Latitude: 11.7470⁰ N, Longitude: 11.9662⁰ E), Yobe state – Nigeria and the drying efficiency was calculated on the basis of weight change, drying time, heat gain and moisture removal. The results obtained showed that the dryer efficiency are 15% and 16% for tomato and chili respectively, while for open air drying the efficiency was found to be 10% and 13% for tomato and chili respectively. These results showed vast difference between open drying and drying inside a PV powered solar dryer. Thus, base on these results it can be concluded that the dryer is more efficient way of preserving vegetables food than the open air drying. 

Keywords: Solar Energy, Drying Process, Moisture Removal, Temperature, Efficiency