TY - JOUR
TI - Energy and exergy analysis of greenhouse drying of ivy gourd and turkey berry
AU - Subramani Sekar
AU - Sivakumar Dana Sekar
AU - Thirumalai Natesan Valarmathi
AU - George Mary Lionus Leo
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2020
VL - 24
IS - 1
SP - 645
EP - 656
PT - Article
AB - This study deals with the performance evaluation of a simple low-cost green-house dryer using energy and exergy analysis. Drying experiments were conducted under the open Sun and in greenhouse dryer with two different cover sheets of ultra violet polyethylene and drip lock under passive mode and active mode for two vegetables with medicinal values: ivy gourd (coccinia grandis) and turkey berry (solanum torvum). Thermal efficiency, exergy efficiency, and improvement potential were evaluated and presented. The experiment showed that performance of the greenhouse dryer was better than the open sun drying. Thermal efficiencies were up to 30.64% and exergy efficiency values were up to 0.09% and the maximum values were obtained during the drying of ivy gourd with the drip lock sheet under active mode. The results showed that this dryer could be used for drying agricultural products at low cost by the farmers in order to produce value added products from their harvested products.