Author : Garima Tiwari, V. K. Katiyar, Vivek Dwivedi, A. K. Katiyar and C. K. Pandey

 
The global concerns about energy consumption and environmental sustainability raise the aspiration of applying solar energy to agriculture. Therefore, an attempt has been made to study the performance of different kinds of popular solar dryers for plain region, India and compared. For the purpose of comparison, certain criteria and crops have been selected and dryers performance were tested on these criteria. Solar Tunnel dryer and solar hybrid dryer are found to be more suitable as for as drying time and the quality of dried crop is concerned.

Keywords: Solar energy; crops; solar tunnel; ambient temperature.

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.3,No.3(Aug- 2013)