Design and Performance Evaluation of a Solar Assisted Heat Pump Dryer Integrated with Biomass Furnace for Red Chilli

The performance of a solar assisted heat pump dryer integrated with biomass furnace has been designed and evaluated for drying red chillies, and drying kinetics of red chillies were evaluated. The red chillies were dried from 22 kg with moisture content of 4.26 db to moisture content of 0.08 db which needed 11 hours, with the average drying chamber temperature, drying chamber relative humidity, and an air mass flow rate of 70.5°C, 10.1%, and 0.124 kg/s, respectively, while the open sun drying needed 62 hours. Compared to open sun drying, this dryer yielded 82% saving in drying time. The drying rate, the specific moisture extraction rate, and thermal efficiency of the dryer were estimated in average to be about 1.57 kg/h, 0.14 kg/kWh, and 9.03%, respectively. Three mathematical models, the Newton, Henderson-Pabis, and Page models, were fitted to the experimental data on red chillies dried by solar assisted heat pump dryer integrated with biomass furnace and open sun drying. The performance of these models was evaluated by comparing the coefficient of determination (R2), mean bias error (MBE), and root mean-square error (RMSE). The Page model gave the best results for representing drying kinetics of red chillies