Analysis of Moisture Transport in the Solar Drying of Food Items.

In this study, the principle of moisture transport in porous materials was used to analyze the rate of moisture removal from food items during the solar drying process. A cabinet solar dryer was designed, fabricated, and tested to evaluate moisture flux from samples of food items. The dryer exhibited sufficient ability to dry the samples reasonably to a safe moisture level. The results obtained show that at lower liquid concentrations the moisture flux increases with increase in the concentration, while the moisture flux was constant at liquid concentrations above 70 kg m–3 for shelled corn and above 150 kg m–3 for yam chips. The drying temperature and the intensity of solar radiation were the main factors that influenced the rate of moisture removal from the food items. (Keywords: food items, liquid concentration, moisture transport, solar dryer, food preservation