Advanced Exergy Analyses of a Solar Hybrid Food Dehydrator

Waseem Amjad, Muhammad Ali Raza, Furqan Asghar, Anjum Munir, Faisal Mahmood, Syed Nabeel Husnain, Muhammad Imtiaz Hussain and Jun-Tae Kim
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Waseem Amjad: Department of Energy Systems Engineering, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
Muhammad Ali Raza: Department of Energy Systems Engineering, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
Furqan Asghar: Department of Energy Systems Engineering, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
Anjum Munir: Department of Energy Systems Engineering, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
Faisal Mahmood: Department of Energy Systems Engineering, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
Syed Nabeel Husnain: Department of Energy Systems Engineering, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
Muhammad Imtiaz Hussain: Agriculture and Life Sciences Research Institute Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Korea
Jun-Tae Kim: Department of Architectural Engineering, Kongju National University, Cheonan 31080, Korea

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: In this study, for the first time an advanced exergy analysis was applied to a solar hybrid food dehydrator to find out the causes of the inefficacies and to assess the actual improvement potential. The dryer was integrated with an evacuated solar tube collector and gas burner as a heating sources. Drying experiments were performed using bell pepper at 55 °C under three heating options i.e., gas, solar and dual. The rates of exergy destructions were split into unavoidable ( E d U N ) and avoidable ( E d A V ) which further split into four parameters termed unavoidable endogenous ( E d U N , E N ), unavoidable exogenous ( E d U N , E X ), avoidable endogenous ( E d A V , E X ) and avoidable exogenous ( E d A V , E N ). Conventional exergy analysis revealed that drying chamber possess lower improvement potential rate (IP) than heating components while outcomes of advanced exergy analysis showed that both the design and system components interaction of heating unit imparted a major effect on its efficiency. Optimizing the operating conditions of the heating sources could reduce their higher amount of inefficiencies. The values of exergy efficiency for the overall system were calculated to be 86.66%, 84.18%, 83.74% (conventional) and 97.41%, 95.99%, 96.16% (advanced) under gas, dual and solar heating modes respectively.

Keywords: advanced exergy analysis; solar hybrid dryer; improvement potential; system optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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