Operating a Cocoa Bean Dryer with Renewable Energies

Drying is one of most used processes in agriculture since antique times, this process in general, consists in eliminating the water of a solid product with the purpose of increasing conservation time and avoiding the proliferation of microorganisms in the product. This drying is achieved by various methods such as: Convective dryers that use hot air to extract humidity, Conductive dryers that use heated metallic plates to extract humidity, Radiation dryers that extract humidity through infrared light, and Dielectric dryers that extract humidity through a high frequency electric field. Dominican Republic is the ninth exporter of Cocoa Beans across the globe, according to the export statistics issued by the Cocoa National Commission, in 2019 exports reached a value of 83 thousand metric tons, meaning that the use of cocoa dryers is of the upmost importance for these exports. The geographic scope of the project is limited by the geographic circumscription of San Francisco de Macorís where the cocoa bean is transferred for its drying process from the different places in the province. The technical scope of this project includes the identification and valuation of the renewable resources available in the zone through the use of available secondary information. As well as the development of a matrix for the selection of renewable energy that were identified and that can be implemented in the drying process of cocoa beans. Consequently, the renewable energy will be adapted in the cocoa drying process to subsequently determine the investment cost that is required for its implementation and determine the viability of the project