MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS FOR THE DRYER DESIGN

1. Quantity of moisture to be evaporated, Mw This is obtained from the expression: Mw = Mp (MCi - MCf)/ (100 - MCf) Where; Mw is the mass of water contained in the mushroom Mp is the mass of the product in the dryer before drying MCi and MCf are the initial and the final moisture contents of the product In this case, these values were: Mp = 34kg; MCi = 90.4%; MCf = 12.7% Values of moisture content were obtained from experiments done before on Dehydration of mushrooms using a locally made solar dryer by A. Madhlopa and T.J. Mponda. Moisture content was found to be 30.26kg (Ayensu A., 1997)

2. Quantity of heat needed to evaporate the moisture This is derived from the product of the latent heat of vaporisation of water, Lv, and the mass of water in question. Lv = 2.5MJ/kgH2O This implies that the quantity of heat is: Q = 2.5 x 106J/kg x 30.26kg = 75.65MJ

3. Average drying rate This was determined as a ratio of the amount of moisture to be removed in the length of time desired for the mushrooms to dry. Drying Rate, DR = Mw/td; where td is the drying time; taken as 10 hours in this case DR = 30.26kg/ 10hrs = 3.026kg/hr 4. Amount of water which can be removed by the airstream A procedure is given by Exell (1980) for calculating the amount of water which can be removed by the airstream. A psychrometric chart is then used to determine the values of properties of moist air at the different conditions. Assuming an input air temperature of 25 0C (dry bulb) average temperatures for the area and a relative humidity of 70%, the psychometric chart shows that its humidity ratio is 0.0141 kg water/kg dry air. When the solar collector heats it to, say, 40 C (dry bulb), the humidity ratio remains constant. If on passing through the crop, the air absorbs moisture until its relative humidity is 90%, the psychometric chart shows the humidity ratio to be 0.020 kg water/kg dry air. The change in humidity ratio is therefore 0.020 - 0.0141 = 0.0059 and the corresponding dry bulb temperature is 28.2 C

iii-Quantity of heat needed to evaporate the H2O: The quantity of heat required to evaporate the H2O would be: Q = mw x hfg Where: Q = The amount of energy required for the drying process, kJ mw = mass of water, kg hfg = latent heat of evaporation, kJ/kg H2O The amount needed is a function of temperature and moisture content of the crop. The latent heat of vaporization was calculated using equation given by Youcef-Ali et al. (2001) as follows: hfg = 4.186*103 (597-0.56(Tpr)) Where: Tpr = product temperature,C Moreover, the total heat energy, E(kJ) required to evaporate water was calculated as follows: E = m` (hf -hi)td Where: E = total heat energy, kJ m` = mass flow rate of air, kg/hr hf and hi = final and initial enthalpy of drying and ambient air, respectively, kJ/kg dry air. td = drying time, hrs The enthalpy (h) of moist air in J/kg dry air at temperature T (C) can be approximated as (Brooker et al., 1992): h = 1006.9T +w[2512131.0 +1552.4T] (6) (5) (4)

iv- Average drying rate Average drying rate, mdr, was determined from the mass of moisture to be removed by solar heat and drying time by the following equation: mdr = mw/ td (8)

The mass of air needed for drying was calculated using equation given by Sodha et al. (1987) as follows: m`= mdr / [wf wi] Where: mdr = average drying rate, kg/hr wf wi , final and initial humidity ratio, respectively, kg H2O/kg dry air From the total useful heat energy required to evaporate moisture and the net radiation received by the tilted collector, the solar drying system collector area Ac, in m2 can be calculated from the following equation: (9)

AcI = E = m` (hf -hi)td Therefore, area of the solar collector is: Ac = E/I

(10)

(11)

Where E is th total useful energy received by the drying air, kJ; I is the total global radiation on the horizontal surface during the drying period., kJ/ m2 and is the collector efficiency, 30 to 50% (Sodha et al., 1987). Volumetric airflow rate, Va was obtained by dividing ma by density of air which is 1.2 kg/m3 v-Air vent dimentions: The air vent was calculated by dividing the volumetric airflow rate by wind speed: Av = Va/Vw Where Av is the area of the air vent, m2 , Vw wind speed, m/s.The length of air vent , Lv, m, will be equal to the length of the dryer. The width of the air vent can be given by: Bv = Av/Lv Where Bv is the width of air vent, m (13) (12)