| 1st Nordic Drying Conference - NDC'01, Trondheim, Norway, June 27-29, 2001 | |
SOLAR DRYING OF FISH USING SOLAR TUNNEL DRIERB. K. Bala1 and Md. Nazrul Islam21. Department of Farm Power & Machinery, Bangladesh Agricultural University Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh, E-mail: bkbala@mymensingh.net 2. Department of Fisheries Technology, Bangladesh Agricultural University Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh Keywords: flat plate collector, forced convection, salt treatment, silver jew fish, solar radiation, solar module, transparent plastic cover. ABSTRACT Field level experiments on solar drying of fish using solar tunnel
driers were conducted at Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. The drier consists
of a transparent plastic covered flat plate collector and a drying
tunnel connected in series to supply hot air directly into the drying
tunnel using four dc fans, operated by two solar modules. This drier
has a loading capacity of 120-150 kg of fish and a total of 11 drying
runs were conducted. Drying air temperature at the collector outlet
varied between 35.6°C to 52.4°C in the month of February-March,
1999, 32.5°C to 53.5°C in the month of November-December, 1999
and 29.5°C to 55.0°C in the month of November-December, 2000.
The temperature inside the collector increased along the length of the
collector from the inlet of the collector while the drying air temperature
was almost constant throughout the drier length during drying of fish.
In a typical experimental run the salt treated silver jew fish was dried
to a moisture content of 14.75% from 71.56% in 3 days of drying in
solar tunnel drier as compared to 3 days of drying in the traditional
method of comparable samples to a final moisture content of 23.63%.
In all the cases the use of solar tunnel drier leads to considerable
reduction of drying time in comparison to sun drying. The fish being
dried in the solar tunnel drier were completely protected from rain,
insects and dust, and the quality of the fish dried in the tunnel drier
was of quality dried products as compared to sun dried products.
Proximate analysis also indicates that the fish dried in the solar
tunnel drier and packed in polyethylene bags is a good quality dried
product for human consumption.
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