Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518

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Solar Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Performance analyses of mixed mode forced convection solar dryer for T

drying of stevia leaves
⁎
D.V.N. Lakshmia, P. Muthukumarb, , Apurba Layeka, Prakash Kumar Nayakc
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Durgapur, Durgapur 713209, India
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam 781039, India
c
Department of Food Engineering and Technology, CIT Kokrajhar, BTAD, Assam 783370, India

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In the present work, experimental investigations carried out on drying of Stevia leaves in a newly developed solar
Mixed mode forced convection solar dryer dryer of mixed mode forced convection type (MFSCD) and open sun drying (OSD) are presented. Experiments
Stevia drying have been performed under the average solar radiation of 567 W/m2, ambient temperature of 30 °C and drying
Economic analysis air flow rate of 0.049 kg/s. The safe (final) moisture content of stevia leaves 0.053 (d.b) has reached in 330 min
Quality analysis
and 870 min of drying time in MFSCD and OSD, respectively. The overall dryer efficiency and average exergy
Sensory analysis
efficiency of the MFSCD were found as 33.5% and 59.1%, respectively. Quality analyses were carried out for
fresh, open sun-dried and solar dried stevia leave samples. It was found that the anti-oxidant and the flavonoids
were rich in solar dried samples compared to that of OSD samples. The color preservation is good in solar dried
samples compared to OSD. Sensory analysis (flavor, aroma and taste) carried out on stevia leaves indicated that
the solar dried stevia leaves provided better score compared to OSD samples. The estimated payback period of
the newly developed dryer was found as 0.65 yr.

1. Introduction
Usage of medicinal herbs and aromatic plants in day to day life has
been increasing significantly due to their non-adverse effects on human
health. Freshly harvested medicinal herbs have many uses, but they are
not available throughout the year. Therefore, they can be stored /pre-
served by employing any one of the post-harvesting techniques such as
drying, freezing and canning. Drying of medicinal herbs is a challenging
task as they are highly sensitive to heat and humidity. Generally, herbs
require immediate drying after collecting them from the farm to avoid
microbial activity and to keep their original constituents (Jin et al.,
2018). In tropical countries, conventionally, the drying of agricultural
products has been carried out in the open sun drying (OSD). The dis-
advantage of OSD is the uncontrolled heat transfer to the product and
slow drying rate. As a result, the quality of the products is very poor and
they do not able to compete in international market. Drying at constant
temperature and low relative humidity (controlled condition) em-
ploying hot air drying (produced either from electrical or biomass) and
infra-red drying improve the product quality significantly. However,
these techniques need high investment and also devour lot of energy.
Drying using renewable energy source is one of the cleanest and
cheapest solution. Solar drying is a well-known alternative to supplant
the mechanical thermal dryer. Solar dryers are very simple in con-
struction, consume zero energy (if the blower of the dryer is integrated
with solar PV panel), economical and easy to operate. Most of the
medicinal plants require the drying temperature in the range of
30–45 °C and relative humidity (RH) less than 50% (Čipliene et al.,
2015) for safe drying. India is blessed with many medicinal herbs and
spices. According to the Exports and Imports (EXIM) study, 880 med-
icinal products have been included in the Indian trade (Asl Roosta et al.,
2017).
Across the globe, due to change in lifestyle and genetic predisposi-
tion, major percentage of population is facing the problem of diabetics.
According to a recent survey, nearly 387 million people around the
globe are suffering from diabetics and this number will increase to 592
million by 2035 (Joshi, 2015). Utilization of artificial sweeteners such
as Aspartame and Acesulfame potassium creates harmful health effects
like migraine, abdominal problems and so many. The use of natural
sweeteners such as stevia can avoid the above-said problems. Stevia is a
natural sweetener and its sweetness is 300 times higher than sugar
(Periche et al., 2015). Stevia leaves can be consumed in dried form. The
drying condition affects the quality of the stevia leaves. Under direct
sun drying, the quality of the leaves degrades and the medicinal values
of leaves also get reduced radically. Solar drying of stevia leaves is the

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: pmkumar@iitg.ac.in (P. Muthukumar), apurba.layek@me.nitdgp.ac.in (A. Layek).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2019.06.009
Received 1 September 2018; Received in revised form 5 December 2018; Accepted 4 June 2019
0038-092X/ © 2019 International Solar Energy Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al.
Nomenclature
Etotal Power input to the drying chamber (W)
Eb Blower power consumption (W)
Eẋ Rate of exergy (W)
i Rate of inflation (%)
I Solar radiation intensity (W/m2)
Fc Capital recovery factor
Fs Salvage fund factor
k Rate of interest on long-term investment (%)
Mi Initial moisture content (%)
Mt Moisture content at time t. (%)
MR Moisture ratio
N Payback period (year)
S Savings (Rupees)
Greek symbols
ηds Overall efficiency of drying system (%)
best method to preserve its original quality to some extent. Mohamed
et al. (2005) examined the drying of citrus aurantium leaves in an in-
direct forced convection type (IFSCD) solar dryer integrated with aux-
iliary heater. The experiments were performed at various temperatures
and with three diverse flow rates of 0.0227, 0.0556 and 0.0833 m3/s.
The experimental data were fitted to 13 drying kinetic models reported
in the literature and Midilli Kucuk model was found as best drying ki-
netic model. Drying behavior of some aromatic plants were studied
under open sun (Akpinar, 2006). The drying process was observed in
the falling rate. The effective moisture diffusivity of the leaves (mint,
parsley, basil) were found in the range of 10−10 to 10−12 m2/s.
Boughali et al. (2009) developed an indirect mode solar hybrid dryer
for drying of tomato slices. The drying behavior of tomato slices were
studied by varying the air mass flow rate and the drying air tempera-
ture. The impact of drying air temperature is more imperative relatively
to the impact of air drying velocity. The payback period of the dryer
was found as 1.27 yr. Shalaby and Bek (2014) developed a novel solar
dryer integrated with phase change material (PCM) based energy sto-
rage for drying of medicinal plants O. Basilicum and T. Nerifolia. The
experiments were performed under no load and with and without PCM
by varying the drying air flow rate. It was observed that a maximum
temperature of 45 °C was observed inside the solar dryer, when the
dryer operated in the air flow rate range of 0.012 kg/s − 0.089 kg/s.
Integration of PCM provides a constant temperature condition inside
the dryer and subsequently led to good quality of the products. Kareem
et al. (2017) developed a solar air heater having multi-pass facility for
drying of screwpine leaves. Below the absorber plates, granite grits
were placed as energy storage materials. Due to energy storage in
granite grits, the drying air temperature inside the deck was reached
high at night. The samples were dried in the solar dryer effectively in
28 h and took 53 h under OSD conditions. The thermal collector effi-
ciency, pick up efficiency and drying efficiency were found as 58.7%,
66.9% and 36.0%, respectively. The payback period of the dryer was
calculated as 0.75 yr. Recently, a solar dryer (MFSCD) integrated with
paraffin based thermal energy storage system has been developed to dry
black turmeric (Lakshmi et al., 2018) The drying kinetics of black
turmeric was studied by applying various models available in the lit-
erature and found that Two-term model was best suited for solar dried
black turmeric slices. Experiments were performed to study the drying
characteristics of stevia leaves in a direct cabinet and indirect solar
dryers (Castillo Téllez et al., 2018). The direct solar dryer (DSD) was
operated under natural and forced convection modes (with and without
mesh). The indirect solar dryer consisted of an array of flat plate col-
lectors and a drying chamber. Stevia leaves dried within 210 min and
508
Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518
ηex , prod Exergy efficiency of product (%)
ηex , dc Exergy efficiency of a drying chamber (%)
ηth Thermal efficiency of solar air heater (%)
τ Transmissivity
α Absorptivity
Subscripts
ac Annualized cost
dc Drying chamber
dest Destroyed
Evap Evaporation
i Inlet
in Input
o Outlet
Pr Product
rf Running fuel cost
r Reference
300 min under natural and forced convection direct solar dryers. The
drying time was more when the DSD covered with wire mesh. The
leaves attained the final moisture content (0.053 d.b) in 360 min and
550–600 min, under natural and forced convection modes of DSD, re-
spectively. The colorimetric analysis of the samples were performed
and found that the temperature affects the sample colour. From the thin
layer drying kinetic analysis, the Two term exponential and Weibull
methods were best fitted for direct solar dryer for both (with and
without mesh cover) and Weibull model for indirect solar dried sam-
ples. Karthikeyan and Murugavelh (2018) have developed a mixed
mode solar tunnel dryer embedded with solar flat plate collector for
drying of turmeric. The authors have performed experiments on drying
kinetics and found that Verma model was the best suited for re-
presenting the drying behavior of turmeric. An IFSCD integrated with
sensible and latent heat storage material was developed for drying of
medicinal plant in Himalayan region (Bhardwaja et al., 2019). The
experiments were performed with and without thermal energy storage.
It was found that the drying rate was high when the dryer operated with
thermal energy storage materials.
Energy analysis of the dryer does not provide the complete in-
formation about losses and destruction of energy. Exergy-based analysis
is essential to detect the cause, location and magnitude of various ir-
reversibilities. Finding the root cause of various irreversibilities can
help to improve the dryer performance. The exergy study in the drying
process has been carried out by many researchers in the recent years.
An IFSCD with a supplementary heater was used to dry shelled and
unshelled pistachios (Midilli and Kucuk, 2003). The exergy efficiency of
shelled pistachios was varied from 27.8% to 100% and for unshelled, it
was varied from 10.8% to 100%. The energy utilization for drying
process was high in case of unshelled pistachios compared to shelled
pistachios. The olive mill wastewater (OMW) was dried in cross-flow
solar dryer under natural convection (Celma and Cuadros, 2009). Au-
thors observed high exergy efficiency during day 1 compared to day 2,
because the losses were more in the second day. Similarly, drying
performance of Jackfruit was analyzed in solar tunnel dryer by
Chowdhury et al. (2011) Energy and exergy analyses during drying of
red chili were carried in an IFSCD by Fudholi et al. (2014). From their
experimental observation
it was found that the exergy efficiency of drying chamber depends
on drying air inlet temperature. A cross-flow indirect solar dryer was
indigenously fabricated in-house for studying the drying behavior of
palm oil fronds (Fudholi et al., 2015). The palm oil fronds were dried
from the moisture content of 60% (w.b) to 10% (w.b) in 3 days. The
average exergy efficiency and improvement potential of the solar dryer
D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al.
were reported as 47% and 172 W, respectively.
Solar drying of pistachios with and without recirculation of air in
IFSCD was studied by Mokhtarian et al. (2016). The experiments were
performed under three distinct conditions (i) with recirculation of air
(when the RH of exit air dropped to less than 15%), (ii) without re-
circulation of air and (iii) OSD. It was observed that the drying time was
less when the dryer was operated with condition (i). The exergy effi-
ciency of the dryer with recirculation was 1.8 times higher than without
recirculation condition. An IFSCD was designed and developed to dry
ghost chili and ginger under the climatic circumstances of Guwahati
(Rabha et al., 2017). It was observed that the exergy efficiency of the
solar dryer depends on the moisture content and type of the products.
The exergy efficiency of the IFSCD was varied from 21% to 98%, when
it was loaded with ghost chili. A solar dryer integrated with thermal
energy storage (TES) was developed for drying of chili (Rabha and
Muthukumar, 2017). Integration of TES improved the thermal effi-
ciency of the solar dryer. The authors have also investigated the exergy
analyses of drying chamber and thermal energy storage system.
From the literature, it is observed the solar dried medicinal herbs
preserve the medicinal and nutritional values compared to open sun
drying. Most of the developed solar dryers reported in the literature are
of indirect type and used mainly for drying agricultural products and
fruits. Very few works were reported on investigating the drying
characteristics of medicinal plants by using solar dryers. Further, ex-
ergetic analyses of the solar dryers have been investigated mostly for
drying of vegetables and fruits and no profound experimental in-
vestigation on the solar drying of stevia leaves has been reported.
Therefore, the present work focusses on the development of a mixed
mode forced convection solar dryer for drying of stevia leaves.
Performance analysis of the solar dryer in terms of thermal efficiency of
solar air heater, over all dryer efficiency, exergy efficiency of drying
chamber and product exergy efficiency are reported. Quality analyses
of solar dried and open sun dried samples are investigated and eco-
nomic analysis of the solar dryer are also presented.
2. Materials and experimental studies
The experimental set up of the newly developed solar dryer has
been positioned on the rooftop of the Mechanical Engineering Dept., IIT
Guwahati, India at a longitude 91°73′ East and latitude 26°14′ North.
The experiments were performed during October - 2017.
Fig. 1a. Schematic of a mixed mode forced convection solar dryer.
509
Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518
2.1. Experimental setup
The pictorial and photographic views of the developed dryer are
shown in Figs. 1a and 1b. The set up mainly consists of following: (i)
two identical double pass counterflow solar air heaters (DPCSAH)
connected in series, (ii) a parallel flow mixed mode solar dryer along
with trays and (iii) a blower. The solar air heater (SAH) is of forced
convection type and the flow of air is double pass and in counterflow
direction. SAH consists of glass cover, absorber (G.I sheet) and base
plate. All air heater parts are enfolded in a wooden box. Table. 1 pro-
vides the specifications and various dimensions of dryer components.
Ambient air enters into the SAH1 through a circular duct. The air
first flow over the absorber plate and receives heat from solar radiation.
The hot air then enters below the absorber plate (double pass) and then
passes into the SAH2. In order to utilize the maximize incident of solar
radiation on the solar collector, both the heaters are adjusted to south
with an angle of 26.21°. The solar drying chamber is fabricated with
mild steel sheet and covered with wood. The plenum chamber has di-
verging section for uniform distribution of the air coming out from the
blower into the drying chamber. The dryer dimensions are
2 m × 0.85 m × 0.45 m. It consists of 6 trays on which products are
kept for drying.
The dimension of each tray is 0.58 m (W) × 0. 83 m (L). The
chamber can be considered as hybrid one because the hot air enters in
one side and the direct sun radiation is passed into the drying chamber
through the glass cover which is fixed at the top of the chamber. This
hybridization helps in faster drying. A centrifugal blower (power con-
sumption of 200 W) has a capacity of 1.95 m3/min is connected be-
tween SAH2 and drying chamber. The flow rate of air is controlled by a
gate valve. The flow rate of the drying air at 0.049 kg/s was maintained
during the experiment.
2.2. Experimental procedure
The stevia leaves were collected from the local farm and cleaned
with fresh water. The leaves were separated from the stems manually.
Fresh stevia leaves of 10 kg were placed in six trays and distributed
uniformly. To investigate the drying behavior of stevia leaves, 100 g
sample of stevia leaves was kept in a sample tray and placed nearer to
the plenum chamber. Another sample of same mass (100 g) was placed
under the sun openly to dry for comparison of the drying behavior.
A digital weighing balance (accuracy of ± 0.01 g) was used for
D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al. Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518

Fig. 1b. Photographic view of a mixed mode forced convection solar dryer.

Table 1 • The solar dryer is a parallel flow mixed mode type.

Specifications of the solar dryer. • Both the solar air heaters (similar physical dimensions) are coun-
Sl. No Collector components Specifications
terflow double pass and mounted on the same orientation.
• Flow is steady.
1 Collector type Double pass flat plate counter flow solar
• Pressure drop inside the heater is negligible.
2 Absorber plate
air heater (DPCSAH)
1 mm thick GI sheet black coated • Kinetic and potential energies of the air flowing in the dryer are
3 Glazing Normal window glass 4 mm thickness
negligible.
4 Base plate Aluminum 0.2 mm thickness
5 Insulation Glass wool 25 mm thickness From the conservation of mass
6 Drying chamber (DC) Mild steel with thickness 1.2 mm, size ∙ ∙ ∙
2 m (L) × 0.85 m (W) × 0.4 m (H) ∑ ma,in = ∑ ma,out = ∑ ma (1)
7 Number of trays 6
8 Dimension of each tray and 0.58 m (W) × 0. 83 m (L) The amount of useful heat gained by solar air heater (SAH1) is es-
Sample tray dimension 0. 35 m (W) × 0.43 m (L) timated as
∙
Qu = ma × Cp × (To, SAH 1 − Ti, SAH 1) (2)
measuring the weight of the samples at 30 min interval. The drying
chamber humidity was measured with hygrometer (Lutron HT 305 On the solar air heater 1, the amount of heat transfer incident will
hygrometer, resolution of ± 1% RH). T-type thermocouples (accuracy be
of ± 0.2 °C) were positioned at various locations of the SAH to measure Qin = α × τ × I × ASAH1 (3)
the temperature shown in Fig. 2.
The thermal efficiency is the ratio of heat gain to amount of energy
A hot wire anemometer (TESTO-490, accuracy ± 0.01 m/s) was
incident on the SAH1 and it is calculated as;
used to measure the air velocity in the drying chamber. Pyranometer
∙
(Model: SP 110; Make: Apogee, accuracy ± 1 W/m2) was used to Qu ma × Cp × (To, SAH 1 − Ti, SAH 1)
measure the solar radiation incident on the solar air heaters. Outputs ηSAH 1 = =
Qin α × τ × I × ASAH 1 (4)
from T-type thermocouples and pyranometer were acquired to a data
acquisition system (Agilent-34972 A) for continuous monitoring. Since, both the collectors are having same dimensions and placed in
Moisture content of samples (initial and final) was estimated by using the same direction, the amount of useful heat gained and amount of
the hot air oven method. Fig. 2(a) and (b) shows the locations of heat transfer incident are estimated similar to SAH1 using Eqs. (2)–(4).
temperature, velocity and humidity measurements in the air heater and Overall thermal efficiency of the solar air heaters is estimated as,
dryer. The quality analyses (Color, total phenolic content, DPPH) of the ∙
ma × Cp × (To, SAH 2 − Ti, SAH 1)
stevia leaves have been carried out as per the methods described by ηoverall, SAH =
α × τ × I × (ASAH 1 + ASAH 2 ) (5)
Lakshmi et al. (2018).
The desire (Mf) and initial (Mi) moisture contents of the product are
found based on dry basis (d.b).
3. Theoretical studies mi − moven m − moven m − moven
Mi = ; Mf = s ; Mt = t ;
moven moven moven (6)
Following first and second laws of thermodynamics, exergy and
energy analyses of the dryer have been carried out. The following as- where, Mt is the moisture content at time t. mi is the initial mass of the
sumptions are considered; stevia leaves. moven and ms are the mass of stevia samples dried in the
oven and sample dried in the solar dryer.

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D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al. Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518

Fig. 2. Schematic of measurement of temperature, velocity and humidity at different locations in the air heater and dryer.

Moisture ratio of the product is defined by (Rabha et al., 2017) 3.1. Exergy analyses of drying process and drying chamber
Mt
MR = The following assumptions are made, for doing exergy analysis
Mi (7)

The amount of energy input (E total) to the drying chamber is esti- • Flow is steady.
mated as • Effects of kinetic, potential and chemical energies of the air are
neglected.
Etotal = [(ASAH 1 + ASAH 2 ) × I × α × τ + (Adryer × Idryer × α × τ ) + Eblower ] • The dryer is horizontal and pressure drop is neglected.
× tdrying (8) • The specific heat of working fluid is assumed as constant
(Cp = 1.005 kJ/kg-K).
The specific energy consumption (SEC) of the dryer is the ratio of
total energy (kW-h) to amount of water removed (kg) from the product The exergy balance equations derived for DC are given below;
(Lakshmi et al., 2018)
Etotal
SEC = 3.2. Exergy analysis of the DC
mw (9)

The overall drying efficiency of the dryer is estimated as (Lakshmi General exergy balance equation is given by (Beigi et al., 2017)
et al., 2018)
∙ ∙ ∙
∙ ∑ Ex in − ∑ Ex out = ∑ Ex dest
Qevap (or)
ηoveralldryer =
Etotal (10) ∙ ∙ ∙ · · · ·
Ex pr = Ex in − Ex out + Ex evap + Exsolar − Exloss − Ex des (12)
∙
Qevap = m w × hfg (11) The inlet and outlet exergies of drying air are defined as;

511
D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al. Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518

∙ ∙ T as fixed percentage of annual capital cost (in present case, it is assumed

Ex = ma × Cp × ⎡ (Tdi − Tr ) − Tr ln ⎛ di ⎞ ⎤
⎜ ⎟

di ⎢ Tr ⎠ ⎥ (13) as 10% of Cac). For a solar dryer, the running fuel cost is zero.
⎣ ⎝ ⎦
Annualized capital cost (Cac) is calculated from the product of ca-
∙ ∙ T pital cost of the dryer (Ccc) and capital recovery factor (Fc). Where k is
Ex = ma × Cp × ⎡ (Tdo − Tr ) − Tr ln ⎛ do ⎞ ⎤
⎜ ⎟
the rate of interest on the investment (%) and n is the lifespan of the
do ⎢ ⎝ Tr ⎠ ⎥ (14)
⎣ ⎦
dryer;
The rate of exergy due to evaporation of the water from the product
Cac = Ccc × Fc (24)
is given by;
k × (1 + k )n
∙ ∙ T Fc =
Ex = Qevap × ⎡1 − r ⎤ (1 + k )n − 1 (25)
evap ⎢ T ⎥
⎣ pr ⎦ (15)
The annual salvage value (Va) is the product of salvage value SV
The exergy rate of radiation incident on the glass of the drying (assumed as 10% of the capital cost) and sinking fund factor (Fs).
chamber is given as;
k
∙
Va = SV ×
∙ T (1 + k )n − 1 (26)
Ex = Q × ⎡1 − r ⎤
solar dryer ⎢
⎣ Ts ⎥
⎦ (16)
k
FS =
∙ (1 + k )n − 1 (27)
Q = α × τ × Idryer × Adryer
dryer (17) The running electrical cost (Cre) of the developed dryer is only the
The exergetic efficiency of the product is the ratio of rate of exergy running cost of the blower. Where thr is the number of annual running
evaporation from the product to sum of the rate of exergy received due hour of the blower, the cost of electricity per unit is Cele and Pbl is the
to solar radiation on the glass of the chamber and the rate of exergy power consumed by the blower.
received from the hot air. Cre = thr × Pbl × Cele (28)
∙
Ex Mass of the stevia leaves dried yearly in the solar dryer (my) is
evap
ηex , prod = ∙ calculated as follows;
Ex tsun
in (18) m y = md ×
tb (29)
Total exergy inlet of the drying chamber is estimated as follows
∙ ∙ ∙ where, md is mass of dried product per batch, tsun is the number of
Ex = Ex + Ex available solar dryer operating days (assumed as 100 days) per year and
in solar di (19)
tb is drying time (days) required per batch.
The drying chamber exergy efficiency is the ratio of rate of outflow The cost for solar drying (Cs) per kg of dried stevia leaves in the
and rate of exergy inflow to the drying chamber. dryer
∙
Ex Can
do
Cs =
ηex , dc = ∙ my (30)
Ex
di (20) Savings for stevia leaves dried per kg (Rkg) is the difference between
the cost of the product available in the market (Cb) and the cost re-
3.3. Economic analysis of the solar dryer quired to dry 1 kg of leaves in the dryer (Cds) and estimated by using Eq.
(22),
The economic analysis of the solar dryer can be done employing 3 Rkg = Cb − Cds (31)
techniques namely, (i) annualized cost, (ii) life cycle savings (LCS) and
(iii) payback period. The present analysis is carried out following the Savings per day (Rd) is defined as the ratio of saving per batch (Rb)
life cycle savings and the payback period methods (Sreekumar, 2010). to drying time in days required per batch (tb)
The initial step in LCS is to calculate savings per day from the designed Rb Rkg × md
Rd = =
dryer tb tb (32)
The cost of fresh stevia leaves per kg of dried leaves (Cd) is calcu- th
lated by; Annual savings of the drying the product (Rk) in the n year cal-
culated as follows;
mf
Cd = Cf × Rk = Rd × tsun × (1 + i)n − 1 (33)
md (21)
where, Cf is cost of fresh stevia leaves per kg (Rs/kg) and mf and md are where, i is rate of inflation (%)
mass of fresh and dried stevia per batch. Payback period of for the solar dryer (N) is calculated (Sreekumar,
The cost for drying 1 kg of stevia in the dryer (Cds)is sum of the cost 2010)
of fresh stevia leaves per kg of dried leaves and the solar drying cost (Cs) C
ln ⎡1 − Rcc (k − i) ⎤
per kg. N= ⎣ 1 ⎦
1+i
Cds = Cd + Cs (22) ln ⎡ 1 + k ⎤ (34)
⎣ ⎦
The solar drying cost (Cs) is calculated from the annualized cost of where, R1 is the saving during first year of operation (Rs).
the dryer (Can).
Can = Cac + Cm − Va + Crf + Cre 4. Uncertainty analysis
(23)
The annualized cost of the dryer is sum of annualized capital cost This analysis is important to identify the errors in the estimated
(Cac), maintenance cost (Cm), running fuel cost (Crf), electricity cost quantities from the measured quantities. The uncertainties in the de-
(Cre) and salvage value (Va). Maintenance cost of the dryer is calculated pendent value (Y) are calculated by using Eq. (35), where X1, X2…Xn

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D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al. Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518

are measured quantities (independent variables). humidity (RH). When the drying air temperature increases with time,
2 2 2 1/2
the relative humidity of air inside the drying chamber decreases, and
ΔY = ⎡ ⎛ ∂Y ⎞ ⎛ ∂Y ⎞ ⎛ ∂Y ⎞⎤ leading to higher drying rate improves (Chaouch et al., 2018). At am-
⎢ ∂X1 ΔX1 + ∂X2 ΔX2 + ................ ∂Xn ΔXn ⎥
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟

⎣⎝ ⎠ ⎝ ⎠ ⎝ ⎠⎦ (35) bient temperature the RH is high, which causes the slow drying rate in
OSD. The RH variations of ambient air and hot air inside the drying
where, ΔY is the uncertainty in the estimated value and
chamber are shown in Fig. 7.The average RH of ambient air was found
δX1 , δX2 . ................δXn are the errors in the independent variables (Kline
as 59.5% and the average RH of air inside the drying chamber was
and McClintock, 1953).
22.7%. The variation of moisture content (d.b) of stevia leaves with
Independent parameters are measured quantities and uncertainties
time is shown in Fig. 8. It is found that the moisture removal rate at the
in the moisture content, thermal and exergy efficiencies are estimated.
initial stage is faster due to moisture migration from the surface. The
The total uncertainty in the thermal efficiency of the SAH 1 can be
moisture content reduces from 4.36(d.b) to 0.05 (d.b) in 330 min of
estimated as follows;
drying in the solar dryer, whereas under the OSD, the required time to
2 2 2 reach the same moisture content is about 870 min. The drying in the
⎡ ∂η ∙ ∂η ∂η
Δη = ± ⎢ ⎜⎛ ∙ Δma ⎟⎞ + ⎛ ΔTo − SAH 1 ⎞ + ⎛
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ΔTi − SAH 1 ⎞
⎟ present case follows falling rate drying period.
∂m ⎝ ∂To − SAH 1 ⎠ ⎝ ∂Ti − SAH 1 ⎠
⎣⎝ a ⎠ Drying rate variation with drying time for OSD and MFSCD condi-
1/2
∂η 2
∂η ⎤
2 tions are presented in Fig. 9. Rapid drying rate was observed during the
+ ⎛ ΔI ⎞ + ⎛ ΔASAH 1 ⎞ ⎥
⎜ ⎟
initial hours of solar drying and this is due to rapid moisture movement
⎝ ∂I ⎠ ⎝ ∂ASAH 1 ⎠⎦ from the product surface to the ambient. During the final drying stage,
(36) the drying rate becomes slow, with time because the energy required
∙ 2 1/2 break the inter-molecular bonds of stevia leaves increases. In case of
2
Δη ⎡ Δm ΔT 2 ΔI 2 ΔASAH 1 ⎞ ⎤ OSD, as expected, the drying rate was too slow in second day. The dryer
= ± ⎢ ⎜⎛ ∙ a ⎟⎞ + 2⎛ ⎞ +⎛ ⎞ +⎛ ⎜
⎥ ⎟

η ⎝ T ⎠ ⎝ I ⎠ ⎝ ASAH 1 ⎠ ⎦
⎣ ⎝ ma ⎠
The average uncertainties in the thermal efficiency of SAH1, SAH2
and overall thermal efficiency of SAH are ± 4.27%, ± 6.28% and ±
4.16%, respectively. The average uncertainty in the exergy efficiency of
the drying process and drying chamber are calculated as ± 3.14%
and ± 3.43%, respectively. Detailed uncertainty analysis is presented in
the supplementary document.
5. Results and discussion
5.1. Performance of SAHs
In any type of solar dryer, the SAH is a key component. The per-
formance of the SAH depends on the type of absorber plate and heat
received from the sun. Fig. 3 shows the variations of ambient and ab-
sorber plate temperatures, exit air temperatures from SAH1 and SAH2
and the solar radiation intensity incident on the collector. The max-
imum absorber plate temperature was observed as 79.8 °C corre-
sponding to a solar radiation of 653.6 W/m2 at 11.45 AM. The average
exit temperatures of air from SAH1 and SAH2 were 50.5 °C and 59.5 °C,
respectively. The useful heat gains for SAH1 and SAH2 have been es-
timated by using Eq. (2). The overall heat gain from the counterflow
SAH is higher in comparison to the individual heaters. From Fig. 4, it is
observed that the average heat gain for SAH1, SAH2 and overall heat
gain of SAH are 537.2 W, 153.4 W and 656.6 W, respectively. The
variation of thermal efficiencies of SAH1 and SAH2 and overall thermal
efficiency of the SAH are shown in Fig. 5.The thermal efficiency of
SAH1 is high as compared to SAH2 due to more heat loss from the
SAH2. The estimated average thermal efficiencies of SAH1 and SAH2
are 56.3% and 23.5%, respectively. The overall thermal efficiency of
solar air heater varies from 36.1% to 40.6%.
efficiency was estimated by using Eq. (10) for the state of average in-
(37)
tensity incident on the collector (567.1 W/m2) and on the dryer
(298.8 W/m2). The areas of the dryer and the both air heaters are
1.6 m2 and are 4 m2, respectively. The power consumption of the
blower was 200 W. The latent heat of vaporization at the average
temperature of drying air was calculated as 2.68 MJ/kg (estimated by
taking average drying air temperature as 47.1 °C). Total energy input to
the drying chamber was estimated as 8.28 kW-h (from Eq. (8)). The
specific energy consumption was found as1.62 kW-h/kg and the overall
dryer efficiency was found as 33.5%.
Exergy efficiency in drying process is the ratio of rate of exergy used
to remove the moisture from the product to rate of exergy supplied to
dry the product. The rate of exergy supplied to the product is the sum of
collector exergy and exergy due to incident solar radiation on the glass
of the chamber, Fig. 10 represents the variation of exergy efficiency of
drying process with time.
The drying process exergy efficiency varies from 2.2% to 48%,
which depends on product moisture content. From Fig. 10, it is ob-
served that the rate of exergy evaporation of water from the product is
less compared to the rate of exergy of hot air entering into the drying
chamber. This is due to the absorption of some amount of energy by the
drying chamber walls and radiation losses at the glass top. The rate of
exergy in, exergy out, and exergy efficiency of the drying chamber are
shown in Fig. 11. The exergy efficiency of the drying chamber is high at
the end of the drying because the product does not require more energy

5.2. Performance studies on the parallel flow solar drying chamber

The experiments were performed in the developed solar dryer at a

flow rate of 0.049 kg/s. Fresh stevia leaves of 10 kg were distributed in
six trays having each tray capacity of 1.66 kg of stevia. To study the
moisture removal rate from stevia leaves, 100 g of sample was placed
near the plenum chamber section and one more sample of 100 g was
placed under open sun. Temperature distributions of drying air at entry
and exit locations of the solar dryer are shown in Fig. 6.The tempera-
ture of air entering in to the chamber was varying from 42.1 °C to
62.5 °C during the experiment. Moisture evaporation rate from the
product depends mainly on drying air temperature and relative Fig. 3. Temperature variations and solar radiation intensity with drying time.

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D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al. Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518

Fig. 4. Variation of useful heat gain of SAH1 and SAH2, and overall heat gain of Fig. 7. Variation of relative humidity of air inside the drying chamber and
SAH with drying time. ambient conditions.

Fig. 5. Variation of thermal efficiencies of SAH1 and SAH2 and overall thermal Fig. 8. Moisture content variation (d.b.) of stevia leaves at different drying
efficiency of DPCSAH. conditions.

Fig. 6. Air temperature variation at dryer inlet and outlet with time.

Fig. 9. Variation of drying rate with drying time under mixed mode solar and
OSD conditions.

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D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al.
Fig. 10. Effect of drying time on rate of exergy in, rate of exergy evaporation
and exergy efficiency of drying product.
Fig. 11. Variation in rate of exergy in, exergy out and exergy efficiency of a
drying chamber.
at the last stage of drying. The drying chamber exergy efficiency was
varied from 35.3% to 83.3%.
5.3. Quality analyses of dried stevia leaves
Fresh stevia leaves collected from local farm in Guwahati were
washed well in the running water to remove dust, damaged leaves and
adhering mud particles. Then, the surface water on the leaves was
cleaned by wiping with clean tissue papers. Finally, the leaves from the
stem parts were separated for further processing. Chemicals such as
pure methanol, DPPH, Foline-Ciocalteu reagent, Sulfuric acid, acetic
acid, and trichloroacetic acid were used in the current investigation.
5.3.1. Effect of mode of drying on color indices
An important quality attribute of food products is color which is also
an index of the inherent good quality of a food. In the present in-
vestigation, color index (appearance and physical properties of the
dried leaves) was measured in a hunter colorimeter. The photographic
view of solar, open sun-dried and fresh stevia leaves are shown in
Fig. 12. Most of the agricultural products get discolored while drying.
The drying method affects the color indices of dried leaves shown in
Table 2.
The color data of fresh green stevia leaves of L*, a* and b* values
are 35.19, −13.87 and 21.72, respectively and they are changing sig-
nificantly after drying towards brighter, less green and yellowish in
color. Due to longer drying period under open sun, values of a* and b*
(−0.81 and 6.86), significantly got affected. Direct exposure of leaves
to sun radiation results in less green in color. During the drying of
leaves, color changes due to the degradation of chlorophyll to pyr-
opheophytin and pheophytin which has been caused by the changes in
the magnesium ions (Buchaillot et al., 2009). The color changes in
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Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518
different drying methods mainly due to the high temperatures, oxida-
tion and non-enzymatic reactions. The b* value for fresh stevia leave is
measured as 21.72. The measured b* value for the dried leaves in solar
drying is 10.83 and 6.86 is for OSD. The retention of green color in solar
drying is about 20% better than the OSD, which seems to be great
advantage of solar drying.
5.3.2. Effect of drying on total phenolic content
The initial total phenolic content (TPC) was measured as
73.96 ± 4.66 mg GAE per g of sample. Fig. 13 shows the TPC, TFC and
anti-oxidant values of stevia leaves measured at different drying con-
ditions. Fig. 13 clearly illustrates that a maximum reduction of 30% in
comparison with fresh leaves in the TPC was reported in stevia leaves
dried under open sun drying conditions whereas, 2 times higher values
than those of fresh leaves (73.96 ± 4.66 mg GAE per g of sample) in
case of drying in solar dryer was observed. A probable reason could be
the long drying time and slow drying rate in open sun-dried samples
(Babu et al., 2018; Capecka et al., 2005; Hamrouni-Sellami et al., 2013;
Radha Krishnan et al., 2013).
5.3.3. Effect of drying on total flavonoid content
Flavonoid contents in food are recommended as they are protective
for cancer and heart disease (Kahkonen et al., 1999). Fig. 13 shows the
total flavonoid content of the stevia leaves. The TFC is high for both
open sun-dried and solar dried leaves as compared to fresh green stevia
leaves. This increase in TFC may be due to increase in the extractability
of such compounds as significance of change in matrix during drying.
5.3.4. Effect of drying on antioxidant activity
Antioxidants present in plants are in large numbers and it is difficult
to measure each antioxidant components individually. Many techniques
are available for evaluation of total antioxidant activity. Trolox
equivalent (TE) is one of the methods to measure the antioxidant ca-
pacity (Radha Krishnan et al., 2014; Van Den Berg et al., 1999). Total
radical absorption potentials, oxygen radical absorption capacity assays
(Ou et al., 2001) and ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) assay
(Benzie and Strain, 1996) are the few methods commonly used for
antioxidant evaluation. DPPH radical is a stable free radical which
donate hydrogen when reacts with antioxidant compounds and gets
reduced to diphenylpicrylhydrazyl (Evelson et al., 2001). In the fresh
stevia leaves, DPPH value is usually 49.85 ± 2.78 µ mol of TE per gm
of sample. In the current experimental study, it is observed that, after
solar drying, the DPPH value increased up to more than twice of that of
the fresh stevia leaves i.e. 115 ± 6.99 µ mol of TE per g of sample. This
indicates that at high drying temperature, a strong synergistic effect is
developed. This may be due to the scavenging ability of radicals by
hydrogen donation. It is observed that the dried leaves have high anti-
oxidants compared to the fresh stevia leaves.
5.3.5. Sensory evaluation
The sensory evaluation (flavour, taste, texture and overall accep-
tance) of fresh and dried stevia samples were carried out by a taste
panel consisted of 15 untrained panelists and their observations are
represented in Table 3. The panelists were asked to indicate their pre-
ference for each sample, based on the quality attributes of flavour,
taste, texture and overall acceptability. A balanced 9-point hedonic
rating was employed for all the attributes evaluated where 9 denoted
‘like very much’ and 1 indicated ‘dislike very much’. Sensory evaluation
is generally carried out to obtain preliminary information about con-
sumer preference. In this evaluation, solar dried (MFSCD) samples were
received significantly higher points in all the attributes compare to
open sun-dried samples. Solar dried samples possessed a preferable
appearance according to the sensory panelists, which may be due to the
excellent structural retention (Nayak et al., 2017).
D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al. Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518

Fig. 12. Photographic views of fresh, solar and open sun-dried stevia leaves.

Table 2 6. Conclusions
Color analysis of stevia leaves using hunter lab colorimeter.
Samples Stevia Leaves Performance analyses of a newly developed mixed mode forced
convection solar dryer have been carried out for drying of stevia leaves
L* a* b* and the major conclusions drawn are follows;

• The average thermal efficiencies of SAH1 and SAH2 are 56.3% and
Fresh 35.19 −13.87 21.72
Solar dried 33.24 −1.57 10.83
Open sun dried 34.04 −0.81 6.86 23.5%, respectively. The average overall thermal efficiency of the
air heater connected in series is 38.2%.

5.4. Economic analysis

• Stevia leaves were reached the desired moisture content (0.053 d.b)
within 330 min in the newly developed dryer. Whereas, the same
final moisture content was attained in 870 min in OSD condition.
The economic analysis of the developed dryer is necessary for as- The newly developed solar dryer reduces the drying time by 62%
sessing its commercial sustainability. The economic analysis of present and hence, proves its worthiness of use.
work has been carried out by using life cycle savings method and
payback period methods using Eqs. (21)–(34). The payback period of
• The overall drying efficiency of the dryer under mixed mode is
33.5% and the moisture pickup efficiency of the dryer is 81.8%.
the dryer has been calculated by using Eq. (34). The approximate cost
of various components of the solar dryer are listed in Table 4. From
• The drying process exergy efficiency varies from 2.2% to 48.0%
with an average of 25.1%. The drying chamber exergy efficiency
Table 4, it is observed that the annual savings of the dryer is ₹ 91,671 also varies in the range of 35.3% to 83.3%. The drying process ex-
(1300 USD) and the developed dryer cost is ₹ 55,000 approximately. ergy efficiency is considerably low compared than that of the drying
The payback period of the developed dryer is calculated as 0.65 yr. This chamber exergy efficiency and this is due to the low quantity exergy
value is much less than the lifespan of the dryer (normally 10 years). It evaporation from the product inside the chamber.
is very interesting to note that the capital cost of the dryer can be re-
covered in less than a year.
• From quality analysis, it is observed that the TFC, TPC and anti-
oxidant values of the dried stevia leaves in the newly developed
dryer are higher than the OSD.

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D.V.N. Lakshmi, et al. Solar Energy 188 (2019) 507–518

Fig. 13. Effect of drying on TPC, TFC and Antioxidant activity of stevia leaves.

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