Publication
A case for including solar dehydrators in food processing
| dc.contributor.author | Silva, Paulo Bruno Rossi da | |
| dc.contributor.author | Farrero, Bernardo | |
| dc.contributor.author | Ribeiro, Luís Frölén | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-03-27T14:44:44Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-03-27T14:44:44Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2023 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The access of small-scale food producers and big agro-industry players to equipment is abyssal. The latter have access to well-developed and appropriate technology. In this article, one proposes a novel design for food dehydration equipment to serve small-scale producers, reducing their technological gap regarding dehydration. Equipment that dries more than 1000 kg daily is costly and consumes much energy. Lower capacity machines, up to 100 kg per day, are often one-off handcrafted projects built with reused materials without dimensioning supporting the design. They are usually not easily transportable and underperform: the drying chamber tends to overheat; the solar collector's area is usually 50% inferior to the required product quantity. One proposes a mobile dehydrator with a solar collector area 7 times larger than average, promoting moisture removal by naturally convected airflow at lower temperatures, reaching up to 4,5 m/s and 44,3 °C inside the entrance of the drying chamber. Under these flow conditions, the food's organoleptic properties are preserved compared to the often high-temperature drying handspun machines continually adopted by small-scale producers. The internal layout of the drying chamber was also changed to promote the increase of turbulence and reduce the existence of recirculation areas, thus facilitating the transfer of moisture from the food to the airflow. The expected result from implementing this novel design is avoiding food losses due to natural degradation by increasing the product's shelf life before transport and transformation. Solar equipment has zero operational costs, and all these advantages are expected to encourage small-scale dehydration technology. | pt_PT |
| dc.description.version | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion | pt_PT |
| dc.identifier.citation | Silva, Paulo Bruno Rossi da; Farrero, Bernardo; Ribeiro, Luís Frölén (2023). A case for including solar dehydrators in food processing. In CONSOLFOOD 2023. Corunha | pt_PT |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10198/29658 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | pt_PT |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | Solar dryer | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | Food drying | pt_PT |
| dc.title | A case for including solar dehydrators in food processing | pt_PT |
| dc.type | conference object | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
| oaire.citation.conferencePlace | Corunha | pt_PT |
| oaire.citation.title | CONSOLFOOD 2023 | pt_PT |
| person.familyName | Ribeiro | |
| person.givenName | Luís Frölén | |
| person.identifier | 214770 | |
| person.identifier.ciencia-id | 7816-27A0-164D | |
| person.identifier.orcid | 0000-0003-4336-6216 | |
| person.identifier.scopus-author-id | 55938870500 | |
| rcaap.rights | openAccess | pt_PT |
| rcaap.type | conferenceObject | pt_PT |
| relation.isAuthorOfPublication | d42d13d9-85f9-43bf-8e17-b0666df89c51 | |
| relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery | d42d13d9-85f9-43bf-8e17-b0666df89c51 |