DEVELOPMENT OF A SOLAR DRYER FOR FODDER DRYING

Lily Suhaida M.S.1, Nurul Aini M.Y.2, Farah J.2, Haryani H.3, Mohamad Noor I.3 and Syed Hussein S.A.2

Lily Suhaida M.S.1, Nurul Aini M.Y.2, Farah J.2, Haryani H.3, Mohamad Noor I.3 and Syed Hussein S.A.2

A prototype of solar dryer was designed and developed to dry fodder. The component of the drying systems consists of solar panels, charge controller, solar rechargeable batteries, power inverter, blower and heater. The objectives of this study were to design an indirect forced convection solar dryer and to construct a prototype of the dryer for drying fodder. An average drying air temperature of 40oC and 45oC has been recorded inside the drying chamber and drying bed, respectively, during the drying process. In the drying bed, a high relative humidity of about 65% was recorded during initial stages of drying and gradually reduced to about 40% at the end of drying.