Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Thermal behavior of indirect solar dryer: Nocturnal usage of solar air

collector with PCM
Aymen El Khadraoui*, Salwa Bouadila, Sami Kooli, Abdelhamid Farhat, Amenallah Guizani
The Research and Technology Center for Energy, The Thermal Processes Laboratory, Hammam Lif, B.P. 95, 2050 Tunis, Tunisia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An indirect type forced convection solar dryer using Phase Change Material (PCM) was designed, con-
Received 21 October 2016 structed and experimentally investigated. The dryer consists of a solar air panel for a direct heating of the
Received in revised form drying agent, a solar energy accumulator (solar air collector with PCM cavity) and a drying chamber. The
28 December 2016
solar dryer was tested under no load with and without PCM. The present study is aimed at investigating
Accepted 26 January 2017
the feasibility of using a solar air heater with PCM to store the solar energy during the daytime, and to
Available online 1 February 2017
release it during the night. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the charging and the discharging
characteristics of the latent storage unit (PCM cavity). The daily energy efficiency of the solar energy
Keywords:
Indirect solar dryer
accumulator reached 33.9%, while the daily exergy efficiency reached 8.5%. The results show that after
Solar air panel using the solar energy accumulator, the temperature of the drying chamber is higher than the ambient
Solar energy accumulator temperature by 4e16
C, all the night. In addition, the relative humidity in the drying chamber was
Phase change material (PCM) observed 17e34.5% lower than the ambient relative humidity, in the case of the solar dyer with PCM.
Energy and exergy analysis © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction that the dehydration process is interrupted at night or under a low

The drying sector is a big consumer of energy. Reducing energy
consumption in the drying sector can be guaranteed, by using the
solar energy. The solar energy is an important alternative energy
source and preferred to other energy sources because it is abun-
dant, inexhaustible and non-pollutant (Akpinar (2006)). Solar
drying could be an alternative of industrially drying methods (El
khadraoui et al., 2015). The open sun drying is the traditional
method of preserving the agricultural products employed in most
of the developing countries. However, this technique has the
problems of contamination with the dust, rain, soil and insects
(Labed et al., 2016; Perea-Moreno et al., 2016). Various solar dryers
have been designed and developed to overcome the problems of
the open sun drying. These solar drying systems are, quite simple,
low-cost technology, and allow the dried products to be dried un-
der hygienic conditions (Saleh and Badran, 2009). Depending upon
the heat transfer mechanisms to the crop, the solar dryers can be
classified in three types: the direct solar dryers, the indirect solar
dryers and the mixed mode solar dryers.
One of the greatest problems encountered in the solar drying is
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: elkhadraoui1987@gmail.com (A. El Khadraoui).
insolation, resulting in a poor quality of the dried product. Several
attempts have been made to overcome the problem of the inter-
mittent drying in the solar drying. One approach has been the use
of thermal storage. The thermal energy storage materials store the
excess of the thermal energy during the sunshine hours and use it
during the off sun hours. In the literature it has been presented
some designs and studies of the solar crops dryers with a thermal
storage unit to expose the effects of the thermal storage on the
dryer environment conditions (such as air temperature and relative
humidity of drying chamber) and on the drying process. Several
designs of solar dryer with thermal storage unit have been studied
over the years. According to the past researches and studies these
dryer systems with the thermal energy storage can be classified
into two forms: the solar drying systems using sensible heat storage
methods and the solar dryers based on a latent heat storage
methods.
In the literature it has been presented some studies to expose
the effects of the integration of a latent storage unit on the solar
drying process. Enibe (2002, 2003) presented an experimental
study of indirect solar dryer with PCM. The solar dyer consists of a
single-glazed flat plate solar collector integrated with a paraffin
wax as a Phase Change Material and a drying chamber. The PCM is
prepared in modules, with the modules equispaced across the
absorber plate. The system was tested under daytime no-load

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.01.149
0959-6526/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
38 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48

Nomenclature a’ thermal diffusivity (m2 =s)

b’ volumetric coefficient of expansion
Ac surface area (m2 ) y kinematic viscosity (m2 =s)
b spacing of flowing air (m) db bottom insulation thickness (m)


Cp specific heat of air at constant pressure (J=kg C) de edge insulation thickness (m)
Exd destroyed exergy (W) D difference in time
Exin inlet exergy (W) ε emissivity
Exlos loss exergy (W) h energy efficiency (%)
Exout outlet exergy (W) h0 optical yield (dimensionless)


Exst stored exergy (W) l thermal conductivity (W=m C)


g gravitational constant (m=s2 ) li thermal conductivity of insulation (W=m C)


h heat transfer coefficient (W=m2 C) r density (kg=m )3


hc convection heat transfer coefficient (W=m2 C) s Stefan eBoltzmann constant, 5:670  108 W=m2 K 4


hr 2
radiation heat transfer coefficient (W=m C) t transmittance


hw wind convection coefficient (W=m2 C) j exergy efficiency (%)
HR relative humidity (%)
IT solar radiation (W=m2 ) Subscripts
LF latent heat (J=kg) A absorbed
L1 length of collector (m) a ambient
L2 width of collector (m) abs absorber
L3 depth of collector (m) av average
m mass (kg) b bottom
·
m mass flow rate (kg=s) c collector
Nu Nusselt Number car characteristic
P Fluid pressure (Pa) ch charging
Pr Prandtl Number dc drying chamber
Q heat rate (W) dis discharging
Ra Rayleigh Number e edge
Re Reynolds Number F fusion
S section area of the duct (m2 ) fin ch final of the charging process
t time (s) fin dis final of the discharging process
T temperature (
C) g glasses
T average temperature (
C) in inlet
Tm melting temperature (
C) ini ch initial charging process
Tsun sun’s temperature (
C) ini dis initial discharging process
T* the apparent sun temperature (
C) l liquid phase
U heat loss coefficient (W=m2 C)

los leakage, lost
u velocity (m=s) out outlet
uo outside wind velocity (m=s) PCM phase change material
u1 wind speed at height y1 (m=s) s solid phase
u2 wind speed at height y2 (m=s) st storage
t top
Greek symbols u useful
a absorptance

conditions at Nsukka, Nigeria. These studies showed that the sys-
tem can be operated successfully for crop drying applications.
Devahastin and Pitaksuriyarat (2006) investigated the feasibility of
using latent heat storage to conserve excess solar energy during
drying and release it when the energy availability is inadequate or
not available. The latent heat storage prototype using paraffin wax
as a phase change material was used in the study. The results
revealed that the amount of the energy extractable from the latent
heat storage was 1920 and 1386 kJ min/kg when using inlet air
velocity of 1 and 2 m/s and the energy savings was 40% and 34%
when using an inlet ambient air velocity of 1 and 2 m/s, respec-
tively. Bal et al. (2009) designed and developed a solar dryer which
uses paraffin wax as a PCM to store excess solar energy during the
daytime. They use hot air at temperatures close to those exhausted
from a typical solar collector and release it when no solar energy is
available. This implies the possibility of reducing the amount of
energy required in the drying operation. In addition, they high-
lighted the possibility of drying agricultural/food products at
steady and moderate temperatures of 40e75
C. Çakmak and Yıldız
(2011) have studied a novel type of a solar dryer for drying seeded
grape. The developed drying system consists of a solar air collector,
a solar air collector with phase-change material (PCM) and a drying
room. The solar air heater with PCM has been used to perform the
drying process even after the sunset. An indirect solar dryer which
utilizes a Phase Change Material (PCM) was developed by
Esakkimuthu et al. (2013). The proposed drying system contains a
solar air heater, a blower, a packed bed type PCM thermal storage
unit and a drying chamber. They concluded that the low mass flow
rate is able to utilise the maximum capacity of the storage unit and
to supply heat for a longer duration. Reyes et al. (2014) carried out
an experimental study of Mushrooms drying on the hybrid solar
dryer with PCMs. The dryer contains a solar panel, a solar energy
 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48 39

accumulator (contains a paraffin wax as phase change material), a

centrifugal fan, an electrical heater, a drying chamber. The effi-
ciency of the accumulator solar panel varied between 10% and 21%.
The use of the storage unit (accumulator) allowed the dropping of
the electric energy input. Shalaby and Bek (2014) designed and
fabricated a novel indirect solar dryer with phase change material
(PCM) as energy storage medium. The solar dryer is tested with and
without PCM. They found that the drying air temperature in the
solar dryer with PCM, after 2:00 p.m., 3.5e6.5
C is more than the
other case when it was free of PCM. Aiswarya and Divya (2015)
performed a study on new indirect solar dryer with phase change
material (PCM) as energy storage medium. The PCM storage unit is
located at the inner bottom of the drying chamber. The experi-
ments were conducted with both sensible energy storage unit
(pebbles) and latent heat energy storage unit (paraffin wax). An
indirect solar dryer was used to study the effect of PCMs on drying
performance by Jain and Tewari (2015). The solar drying system
essentially consists of four major parts: a flat plate collector, a
packed bed for the thermal storage, a drying chamber and a natural
draft system. The results indicated that during the month of June,
the air temperature in drying chamber was observed 6
C higher
than the ambient temperature after the sunshine hours till mid
night. The novel solar dryer was found financially viable with a Fig. 1. Photograph of the indirect solar dryer: (1) solar energy accumulator, (2) solar air
payback period of 1.5 years. panel, (3) drying chamber.
The main objective of this present experimental work is to
introduce a novel design of the indirect solar dryer (ISD) which is
implementing a paraffin wax as phase change material (latent
storage). The solar energy accumulator was used as heat latent
storage unit. To further understand the effect of the heat provided
by a solar air heater with a latent storage (solar energy accumu-
lator) in drying system, the ISD was tested with and without PCM.
All the experiments were carried out in no-load conditions under a
forced convection mode. In this paper we are going to present the
experimental set-up, the measurement procedure, the energy and
the exergy analysis of the solar energy accumulator, the uncertainty
analysis and the experimental results and discussion.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Description of the indirect solar dryer

An indirect solar dryer has been designed, constructed and Fig. 2. A schematic diagram of the experimental setup.
installed at the Research and Technology Center of Energy (CRTEn)
in Borj Cedria (North of Tunisia): Latitude 36
430 N and Longitude
10
250 E. The solar dryer is divided into two major parts: (1) two 2.1.1.2. The solar energy accumulator. The solar energy accumulator
solar air collectors (solar energy accumulator and solar air panel), (solar air collector with PCM) is used as a mean to heat the interior
and (2) a drying chamber. A pictorial view of the dryer developed in environment of the drying chamber during the off-sunshine period.
this study is shown in Fig. 1. The solar energy accumulator consists of an insulator, a PCM cavity,
and a cover glass. The length, the width and the total volume of the
2.1.1. The two solar air collector
The two solar air collectors (the solar energy accumulator and
the solar air panel) (Fig. 2) were locally fabricated in the Thermal
Processes Laboratory, Research and Technology Center of Energy
(CRTEn) in Tunisia.

2.1.1.1. The solar air panel. The solar air panel (solar air collector
without PCM) is used as a mean to heat the interior environment of
the drying chamber during the sun-period. The length, the width
and the total volume of the collector are 2 m, 1 m and 0.28 m3,
respectively. To reduce the heat losses to the atmosphere, the col-
lector bottom and lateral sides were insulated with 0.05 m thick
polyurethane (heat conductivity 0.028 W/m K) and to reduce the
convective losses, the collector top side was covered with a 4 mm
glass plate (emissivity and transmission coefficients are respec-
tively, 94% and 81% (Bouadila et al., 2014)). Fig. 3. Schematic section and dimensions of the solar energy accumulator.
40 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48

collector are 2.04 m, 1.04 m and 0.33 m3, respectively (Fig. 3). The
black top of the PCM cavity formed the absorber plate. The
Aluminum cavity filled with each 60 kg of paraffin is the most
important component of the solar air heater collector. The cavity is
full to approximately 80% of the free volume according to the
expansion. The thermophysical properties of PCM are shown in
Table 1. The solar energy accumulator bottom and the lateral sides
were insulated with 0.05 m layer of polyurethane, with a heat
conductivity 0.028 W/m K.
The ambient air is sucked by a centrifugal fan from the lower
side of two solar heaters to the drying chamber. The valve V1 (Fig. 2)
regulates the air flow from the solar air panel and V2 (Fig. 2) reg-
ulates the flow from the solar energy accumulator. Both of the solar
air heaters were oriented full south and inclined 37
to horizontal
plane to maintain the maximum utilization of incident solar radi-
ation throughout the day. Fig. 4. Functioning principle of the indirect solar dryer with PCM.

2.1.2. The drying chamber
The drying chamber was fabricated from a galvanized iron with
dimensions 0:8  0:8  1:2 0 m3 (length  width  height). The
drying chamber was insulated at all sides using a layer of poly-
urethane as an insulating material with thickness 0.03 m. The
drying chamber had six drying trays positioned at equal vertical
spacing of 0.15 m. The drying trays were made of a wooden frame
on all four sides and a wire mesh on the bottom to uphold the
samples. The trays can be easily removed to load or unload the
drying product from the door, which represents one side of the
drying chamber.
2.2. Working principle and measuring
The experimental set-up was designed and built in order to
investigate the utilization of the latent storage unit in an indirect
solar dryer (ISD) with a combined solar energy accumulator (solar
air collector with PCM) and a solar air panel. The experiments are
conducted in no-load conditions with and without a storage unit
(solar energy accumulator).
The solar dryer with PCM was operated in two drying modes: a
daytime and a nighttime (Fig. 4). In the daytime (from 6:00 a.m. to
4:00 p.m. (local time)) a fraction of the total solar radiation trans-
mitted by the transparent cover is absorbed by the black absorber
plate of the solar air collector. The outlet opening of the solar air
panel is opened whereas the outlet opening of the solar energy
accumulator is closed (the valve V1 is opened and V2 is closed). The
air passes through the free space between the glass cover and the
absorber plate for the solar air panel. After that, the air enters the
drying chamber, where it distributes to pass over 6 perforated trays
made of stainless steel. At the same time (charging process) a
fraction of the total solar radiation transmitted by the transparent
cover absorbed by the black absorber surface of the PCM cavity: the
absorbed thermal energy is stored as the sensible and the latent
heat forms into the solar energy accumulator.
At nighttime, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. (the next day), the
outlet opening of the solar air panel is closed whereas the outlet
opening of the solar energy accumulator is opened (the valve V1 is
closed and V2 is opened). The fan blows air across the PCM cavity
and extracted the stored heat, the discharging process done. The
stored heat is utilized during the off sunshine hours to continue the
drying process.
Eight K-type thermocouples were fixed at different locations of
the indirect solar dryer and in the open sun to measure the tem-
perature. The global solar irradiation in the plane of the solar
heaters was measured with a Kipp and Zonen pyranometer in a
range of 0e1000 W/m2. The relative humidity of the ambient air
and inside the drying chamber was periodically measured by a
HMP155A sensor. All the climatic and measured parameters are
sample recorded every 10 min using a CR5000 data logger
(Campbell Scientific Inc). The air speed at the outlet of SAHs was
manually recorded during the experiments using an anemometer
(Testo model 445 with accuracy ± 0.01 m/s).
The data delivered by the meteorological station (NRG weather
station) on the site to the Center of Research and Technologies of
Energy in Borj Cedria Tunisia “CRTEn” permits the measurement of
the ambient temperature, the global sun flux on a horizontal plan,
the wind speed and the wind direction.
The NRG weather station provided a wind speed measurement
at 20 m. The wind velocity at a height of 2 m above the ground was
corrected by using the power law equation (Manwell et al., 2009):
ðu1 =u2 Þ ¼ ðy1 =y2 Þb (1)
0:37  0:088 Lnðu2 Þ
where : b ¼
y2  (2)
1  0:088 Ln 10
where u1 and u2 are the wind speed at height y1 and y2 respec-
tively. b is the power law exponent and the subscripts (1 and 2)
corresponding to different heights.
3. Uncertainty analysis
The errors and the uncertainties in the experiments came from
the instrument selection, the condition, the calibration, the envi-
ronment, the observation, the reading, and the test planning
(Akpinar, 2010). The independent parameters measured in the

Table 1
Thermophysical properties of PCM (Enibe, 2002, 2003).

Material Melting temperature (
C) Heat of fusion (J/kg) Thermal conductivity (W/m
C) Specific heat (J/ Density (kg/m3)
kg
C)

Liquid Solid Liquid Solid

Paraffin 56e60 214.4 103 0.21 3890 2940 775 850

 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48 41

experiments reported here are: collector inlet and outlet temper- The thermal energy balance during both the charging and the
ature, drying chamber temperature, ambient temperature, PCM discharging phases:
temperature, ambient and drying chamber relative humidity, air
velocity, and solar radiation.
To carry out these experiments, K-type thermocouples with: the QA ¼ Qu þ Qst þ Qlos (6)
sensitiveness of the data acquisition system, about ±0.01
C, the
where QA , Qu , Qst , and Qlos are the absorbed, useful, stored and lost
measurement error is ±0.03
C and the sensitiveness of the ther-
power, respectively.
mocouple is ±0.01
C. An anemometer with ±0.01 m s1 accuracy,
Based on Duffie and Beckman (1991), the useful heat gain from
and Kipp and Zonen pyranometer with ±3% measurements un-
the collector is:
certainties were used. The sensitiveness was obtained from cata-
logs of the instruments.
The calculated uncertainty of the air mass flow rate, the heat and ·
Qu ¼ mCp ðTout  Tin Þ (7)
the thermal efficiency are presented
. here.
The fractional uncertainty, wm· · , for the mass flow rate Eq. (8)
m
is written as (Holman, 1994): ·
where : m ¼ r uav S (8)
" 2  2  2 #1=2
:  
wm: m ¼ wuav=u þ wTa T þ wPa P (3) uav is the average air velocity and S is the section area of the solar air
av a a
heater.
The radiation absorbed by the absorber surface is defined as:
The density of air r in the mass flow rate equation Eq. (8) is
dependent on ambient pressure Pa and ambient temperature Ta .

Similarly, the fractional uncertainty for the heat wQ Q , from Eq.
· QA ¼ Aabs ðatÞIT (9)
(7) is a function of ðTout  Tin Þ, m and It , considering cp as constants
(Holman, 1994). where ðatÞ is the effective product transmittance eabsorptance.
" The stored heat flux during the charging and the discharging
2  2 #1=2
 : . phases is defined as:
wQ Q ¼ wm m þ wðTout Tin Þ ðT  T Þ
: (4)
out in
2 3
 ZF fin Z
ch;PCM
The fractional uncertainty for efficiency, wh h, from Eq. (26) is a 6 7
:
function of ðTout  Tin Þ, m and It , considering cp and Ac as constants Qch ¼ mPCM 4 Cp;s ðTÞdT þ LF þ Cp;l ðTÞdT 5
(Holman, 1994). ini ch;PCM F

" 2  2  2 #1=2 (10)

 : . 
wh h ¼ wm: m þ wðTout Tin Þ ðT  T Þ þ wIt I
out in t
2 3
(5) ZF fin Z
dis;PCM
6 7
Qdis ¼ mPCM 4 Cp;l ðTÞdT þ LF þ Cp;s ðTÞdT 5
The total uncertainty for the calculated parameters such as the
ini dis;PCM F
air mass flow rate is 0.0041, the heat rate is 0.0091 and the effi-
ciency is 0.0097. Since in all cases the uncertainty values are very (11)
small, the experimental results presented in this work are highly The lost heat flux is given by relation (12), Ulos is the overall heat
acceptable. loss coefficient of the collector. The thermal energy is lost from the
collector to the surroundings by conduction, convection and
radiation.
4. Energy and exergy analysis of the solar energy accumulator

The thermodynamic analysis, particularly the exergy analysis,  

has appeared to be an essential tool for the system design, analysis
Qlos ¼ Ulos Ac Tabs  Ta (12)
and optimization of the thermal systems (Lamnatou et al., 2012).
Ulos is equal to the sum of the heat loss coefficients through the
top (Ut ), the bottom (Ub ) and the edges (Ue ) of the collectors given
4.1. Energy analysis below (Duffie and Beckman, 1991):

The first law of thermodynamic energy balance has been

Ulos ¼ Ut þ Ub þ Ue (13)
calculated by subjecting the measured readings from the experi-
ment. The characteristic of the solar energy accumulator (solar air The top loss coefficient between the solar air collector and the
collector with PCM) is obtained by writing the overall thermal outside:
energy balance equation with the following assumptions (Duffie
and Beckman, 1991): !1
1 1
- The system operated in the steady state. Ut ¼ þ (14)
hc;absg þ hr;absg hw þ hr;ga
- The sky considered as a black body for long-wavelength radia-
tion at an equivalent sky temperature. For laminar flow, during the charging phase, of the flowing air
- All the thermo-physical properties of the air are considered between the absorber and the glasses, the recommend correlation
constant in the operating range of the SAH. of the Nusselt number is given by Hollands et al. (Duffie and
- The cover does not absorb any amount of solar energy. Beckman, 1991):
42 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48

" # collector:
1:6
þ
ðsin 1:8 bÞ 1708
Nuch ¼ 1 þ 1:44 1  1708 1 h ¼ Qu=A I (26)
Ra cos b Ra cos b c t
" 1 #þ
Ra cos b 3 The daily average thermal efficiency of the solar energy accu-
þ 1 (15) mulator is defined as the ratio of the desired energy output during
5830
the discharging process to the total energy input during the
charging process.
where, b ¼ 37
is the inclination angle of the solar air collector. The
Rayleigh number, Ra, is defined by this equation: Z Z
h¼ Qdis Ac It (27)
g b’ DT e3 dis
Ra ¼ Pr (16) ch
n2
’
where, Pr ¼ an , is the Prandtl number and e is the spacing between
the absorber and the glasses.
During the discharging phase, the recommended relation is 4.2. Exergy analysis
given by Sieder-Tate et al. (Daguenet, 1985):
The exergy uses the conservation of the mass and the energy
 
2=3 principles together with the second law of thermodynamics for the
Nu ¼ 0; 116: Re  125 :Pr1=3 : 1
design and the analysis of the energy systems (Kocaa et al., 2008).
 2=3 ! The exergy is defined as the amount of maximum work, which can
Dh be produced by a system or a flow of matter or energy as it comes to
þ ; 2100 < Re < 10000 (17)
L equilibrium with a reference environment (Kotas, 1995).
The mass balance equation can be expressed as:
u Dh X · X ·
where : Re ¼ (18) min ¼ mout (28)
n
Re is the Reynolds number, Dh is the characteristic dimension ·
where m represents the mass flow rate and the subscript ‘‘in”
and L is the absorber length.
stands for inlet and ‘‘out” for outlet.
The convective heat transfer coefficient between the absorber
The general exergy balances can be expressed as given below:
PCM cavity and the fluid (air), hc;absg , is given by:
X X
l Exin ¼ Exout (29)
hc;absg ¼ Nu (19)
e The exergy balance equation applicable for the considered sys-
The radiation heat transfer coefficient between the absorber and tem (solar energy accumulator) can be written as follows (Farahat
the glasses can be calculated from the equation: et al., 2009; Said et al., 2016):
 

s Tabs
2 þ T2 Tabs þ Tg Exin ¼ Exout þ Exlos þ Exd þ Exst (30)
g
hr;absg ¼   (20)
1 þ ε1g 1
εabs where Exin , Exout , Exlos , Exd and Exst are the inlet, outlet, leakage,
destroyed and stored exergy rate, respectively.
The Hottel and Woertz (Duffie and Beckman, 1991) correlation is
used to calculate the heat transfer coefficient due to the wind ve- (i) The total inlet exergy rate includes:
locity in the top of cover:
- The inlet exergy rate with air flow:
hw ¼ 5:67 þ 3:86 V∞ (21)
    
· T · P
   Exin ðairÞ ¼ mCp Tin  Ta  Ta ln in þ mRTa ln in (31)
hr;ga ¼ εg s Tg2 þ Tsky
2
Tg þ Tsky (22) Ta Pa

The appropriate approximation to sky temperature is given by

Swinbak (Duffie and Beckman, 1991): - The absorbed solar radiation exergy rate, assuming the sun as an
€
infinite thermal source (Altfeld et al., 1988; Bejan, 1988; Oztürk,
Tsky ¼ 0:0552 Ta1:5 (23) 2004; Torres-Reyes et al., 2001):
 
The energy loss through the bottom (Ub ) and the edges (Ue ) Ta
Exin ðabsorbedÞ ¼ h0 IT Ac 1  * (32)
equation as follows: T

li where T* is the apparent sun temperature as an exergy source.

Ub ¼ (24)
db In this analysis the value suggested by Petela (1964) is adopted,
i.e. T* is approximately equal to 3/4. Tsun; where Tsun is the apparent
ðL1 þ L2 ÞL3 li black body temperature of the sun, which is about 6000 K. There-
Ue ¼ (25) fore, T* considered here is 4500 K.
ðL1 L2 de Þ
The instantaneous thermal efficiency is defined as the ratio (ii) The outlet exergy rate includes only the rate of outlet air flow
between the useful energy and the solar radiation incident on the (Kotas, 1995):
 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48 43

     dryer without PCM (ISD without PCM). The daytime of the drying
· Tout · Pout starts from about 6.00 a.m. and finish at 4.00 p.m. and the night-
Exout ðairÞ ¼ mCp Tout  Ta  Ta ln þ mRTa ln
Ta Pa time starts at 4.00 p.m. and finish at about 6.00 a.m. (the next day).
(33) The external climate conditions for the 2 -days period are shown
in Fig. 5. It is found that the two days having generally the same
solar intensity. For the case of ISD with PCM, the maximum global
(iii) The leakage exergy rate is caused by the heat leakage rate solar radiation in the inclined plane of the solar collectors was
from the absorber to the environment (Altfeld et al., 1988): recorded 865 W/m2 at 12:20 h. For the case of ISD without PCM, the
   maximum global solar radiation in the inclined plane of the solar
Ta
Exlos ¼  Ulos Ac Ta ðTabs  Ta Þ 1  (34) collectors was recorded 840 W/m2 at 12:40 h. The ambient tem-
Tabs perature shows similar trend with the solar radiation and reached
its maximum around 15:00 h.
(iv) The destroyed exergy rate includes three terms:
5.1. Performance of the solar energy accumulator
- The first term is caused by the absorber surface and sun tem-
During the charging process, the inlet and the outlet openings
perature difference (Dutta Gupta and Saha, 1990):
for the air in the solar energy accumulator (solar air collector with
  PCM) are closed and the PCM cavity absorber stored the energy
1 1
Exd ðabs  sunÞ ¼ h0 IT Ac Ta  (35) provided from the sun. The Nusselt number Nuch ¼ 1 is obtained by
Tabs T*
using Eq. (15). The convective heat transfer coefficient can be


calculated by using Eq. (19): hc ¼ 0:62 W=m2 C.
- The second term is caused by the duct pressure drop (Altfeld On the other hand, during the discharging process, the inlet air
et al., 1988): that has the ambient temperature gets heated by the stored energy
    within the PCM during the charging process. In this period (dis-
DPTa Tin =Ta charging), the transitory flow into the collector is caused by the fan.
Exd ðDPÞ ¼  Tin ln (36)
r Tin  Tout The value of Nusselt number is calculated by using Eq. (17):
Nudis ¼ 17:96. The convective heat transfer coefficient
The third term is caused by the temperature difference between

hc ¼ 11:54 W=m2 C is calculated from Eq. (19).
the absorber surface and to the agent fluid (Altfeld et al., 1988):
The hourly variation of the ambient temperature, PCM tem-
     perature and the outlet temperature of the solar energy accumu-
· Tout Tout  Tin
Exd ðabs  f Þ ¼ mCp Ta ln  (37) lator are presented in Fig. 6. During the charging process, the PCM
Tin Tabs
temperature inside the cavity situated in the middle of the solar
collector increases gradually and attained its maximum 68
C at
15:00 h. At 16:00 h, the discharge process begins and the PCM
(v) The stored exergy rate is both sensible and latent change temperature starts to decrease. This period corresponded to the
within the PCM, for the charging state, so it becomes in the discharge of MCP during which we ceded the amount of latent heat
discharged process (MacPee and Dincer, 2009): it has stored during the charging phase. Along the night, the outlet
temperature of the solar energy accumulator is more than the
" !!
1 Tm ambient temperature by a difference of 5e19
C.
Exdis ¼ mPCM Cp;l Tm  T fin dis;PCM  Ta ln Fig. 7 shows the variations of the absorbed, useful and the stored
Dtdis T fin dis;PCM
energy as a function of time during 2 of October 2015. A great part
 
Ta of the absorbed solar heat was stored inside the PCM cavity. It could
þ mPCM L 1  þ mPCM Cp;s T ini dis;PCM  Tm be noted that during the initial period of charging, the instanta-
Tm
!!# neous heat stored increases with the solar radiation and reached its
T ini dis;PCM peak value of 0.8 kW at 12:00. At this time (12:00) the absorbed
 Ta ln
Tm heat reached 1.2 kW. During the discharging process, the used heat
is uniform for a longer period with an average value equal to
(38)
100 W/m2. This is the major advantage of the solar air collector with
The daily average exergy efficiency of the solar energy accu- an integrated latent storage unit, where a uniform discharging
mulator, analogous to the energy case, is the ratio of the desired process is possible for a long period, which will be useful for a crop
exergy output during the discharging processes by the total drying applications.
required exergy input during the charging processes. Table 2 presents the values of the daily absorbed heat, the daily
Z useful heat, the daily energy efficiency and the daily exergy effi-
Z
j¼ Exdis (39) ciency of the solar energy accumulator of one day (2 of October
Exin ðabsorbedÞ 2015). The daily absorbed heat and the daily useful heat are
dis
ch respectively 49.82 kW and 16.87 kW. During the experimentation,
the energy efficiency of the solar energy accumulator was calcu-
lated using Eq. (25), which revealed an average value around 33.9%.
The average value of the daily exergy efficiency of the solar energy
5. Results and discussions accumulator is around 8.5%.

The indirect solar dryer was experimentally tested in Borj Cedria 5.2. Comparison investigation between ISD with and without PCM
climatic conditions (North of Tunisia) during October 2015. The unit
device is tested under no load. The experiments were divided into
two cases: the solar dryer with PCM (ISD with PCM) and the solar In this section we are going to present the effect of the solar
44 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48

1000
Solar radiation (I) Ambient temperature (Ta) 34
32
800 30

Solar radiation (w/m )

2 28
26

Temperature (°C)
600
24
22
400 20
18
16
200
14
12
0 10
06 10 14 18 22 02 06 10 14 18 22 02 06

Local time (hh)

Fig. 5. Variations of solar radiation and ambient temperature vs. time (2 and 3 October 2015).

85
80 PCM temperature (TPCM) Ambient temperature (Ta)
75 Solar energy accumulator (Tout, PCM)
70
65
60
55
Temperature (°C)

50
45
40
35
30
25
20 Discharging
15 process starts
10
5
0
06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 00 02 04 06
Local time (hh)
·
Fig. 6. Variations of ambient temperature, PCM temperature and outlet temperature of the energy accumulator with PCM, vs. time (m ¼ 0:018 kg=s).

energy accumulator (solar air collector with PCM cavity) in the
drying parameters such as temperature and relative humidity in
the drying chamber.
The daily variations of the ambient temperature, the air tem-
perature inside the drying chamber with and without PCM at night
are presented in Figs. 8 and 9. The ambient temperature varies from
15 to 28
C for the case of ISD with PCM while for the case of ISD
without PCM, it varies from 15 to 29.5
C. The solar radiation and
the ambient temperature strongly affected the air temperature
inside the drying chamber. This is because the hot drying air inside
the drying chamber drawn from the ambient air and heated by the
solar radiation. When the solar radiation fall down, the ambient
and the temperature inside the drying chamber will be decreased.
The maximum temperature inside the drying chamber was 50
C
for the case of ISD with PCM while for the case of ISD without PCM,
it reached 49
C.
During the nighttime, the air temperature inside the drying
chamber in the case of solar dryer without PCM, was equal to the
outside temperature. Whereas, the solar energy accumulator
maintained the air temperature inside the drying chamber higher
than the ambient temperature, the difference varies between 4 and
16
C, along the night.
As the intensity of the solar radiation increases, the temperature
inside the drying chamber increases and as the temperature inside
the drying chamber increases, the relative humidity of the drying
chamber decreases. The relative humidity is inversely proportional
 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48 45

1,4
Useful heat Absorbed heat Stored heat
1,2

1,0

Heat rate (kW) 0,8

0,6

0,4

0,2
Discharging process
0,0 Charging process

-0,2

-0,4
06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 00 02 04 06
Local time (hh)
·
Fig. 7. Absorbed, useful and stored heat rates of the solar energy accumulator as a function of day times (m ¼ 0:018 kg=s).

Table 2
Daily absorbed heat, daily useful heat and daily energy and exergy efficiency for solar energy accumulator.

Absorbed heat (kW) Night time useful heat (kW) Daily energy efficiency (%) Daily exergy efficiency (%)

49.82 16.87 33.9 8.5

55
Ambient temperature (Ta) Chamber air temperature (Tdc)
50

45
Discharging process starts

40
Temperature (°C)

35 Air heated by solar

Air heated by solar energy accumulator
30 air panel

25

20

15

10
06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 00 02 04 06

Local time (hh)

Fig. 8. Variations of ambient temperature and air temperature inside the drying chamber, vs. time during the test of the ISD with PCM.

to the temperature. Figs. 10 and 11 shows the variation of the
relative humidity inside and outside the drying chamber in the
daytime and nighttime. During the daytime, the ambient relative
humidity for the case of ISD with PCM ranges between 42.9 and
66.1% whereas for the case of ISD without PCM it was 33.4e91%. At
the same time, the relative humidity inside the drying chamber
varies from 15.88 to 66.7% for the case of ISD with PCM while it
varies from 16.14 to 78.6% for the case of ISD without PCM.
During the nighttime, the relative humidity in the drying
chamber in the case of the solar dryer without PCM, was equal to
46 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48

55
Ambient temperature (Ta)
50
Chamber air temperature (Tdc)
45

40
Temperature (°C)

35

30
Without solar energy accumulator
25

20

15

10
06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 00 02 04 06
Local time (°C)
Fig. 9. Variations of ambient temperature and air temperature inside the drying chamber, vs. time during the test of the ISD without PCM.

100
Drying chamber relative humidity (RHdc)
90 Ambient relative humidity (RHa)

80
Discharging
process starts
Relative humidity (%)

70

60

50

40

30

20

10
06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 00 02 04 06
Local time (hh)
Fig. 10. Variations of ambient relative humidity and relative humidity inside the drying chamber, vs. time during the test of the ISD with PCM.

the ambient relative humidity. Along the night, the relative hu-
midity inside the drying chamber in the case of solar dryer with
PCM is maintained to 17e34.5% lower than the ambient relative
humidity. The solar energy accumulator (storage unit) creates a
passive dehumidification process at nighttime due to the increase
of the air temperature inside the drying chamber.
5.3. Comparison of the results
The present work is based on thermal performance of Solar
dryer with PCM under Tunisia environment. A comparative study
has been done between previous and current researches. An indi-
rect solar dryer which utilizes a phase change material was
developed by Reyes et al. (2014). The dryer contains a solar panel, a
solar energy accumulator, a centrifugal fan, an electrical heater and
a drying chamber. The solar energy accumulator contained 14 kg of
paraffin wax (PCM) distributed in 100 copper pipes with external
aluminum fins that favor the heat transfer to the drying air. They
reported that the use of the solar energy accumulator reduced the
consummation of electrical energy between 40 and 70%. The effi-
ciency of the accumulator solar panel varied between 10% and 21%.
Shalaby and Bek (2014) carried out an experimental study of a
 A. El Khadraoui et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 148 (2017) 37e48
100
90
80
Relative humidity (%) 70
60
50
40
30
20
10
06 08
Fig. 11. Variations of ambient relative humidity and relative humidity inside the drying chamber, vs. time during the test of the ISD without PCM.
novel solar dryer using a paraffin wax as a phase change material.
The system consists of two identical solar air heaters, drying
chamber, PCM storage units and a blower. The solar dryer is tested
with and without PCM. Two plastic cylindrical containers with a
height of 0.3 m and inner radii of 0.15 m were filled with PCM
(paraffin wax of melting temperature 49
C) to be used as a heat
storage unit. The two containers were fixed in the bottom of the
drying chamber. They found that the drying air temperature in the
solar dryer with PCM, after 2:00 p.m., 3.5e6.5
C is more than the
other case when it was free of PCM. After using the PCM, the drying
air temperature of is higher than the ambient temperature by
2.5e7.5
C after the sunset for five hours. Jain and Tewari (2015)
conducted a study on the performance of an indirect solar dryer
equipped with a latent storage system. The solar drying essentially
consists of four major parts: a flat plate collector, a packed bed for
the thermal storage, a drying chamber and a natural draft system.
The phase change material (48 Kg of paraffin wax) was stored in 48
cylindrical tubes. The tubes were of 0.75 m in length and had a
diameter of 0.05 m. During the experimental period, it was found
that the air temperature in the drying chamber was 6
C higher
than the ambient temperature after the sunshine hours till mid
night during the month of June at Jodhpur (India). In the present
study, the solar dryer with 60 kg of paraffin wax keep the relative
humidity inside the drying chamber between 17 and 34.5% lower
than the ambient relative humidity and maintain the drying
chamber temperature to 4e16
C higher than the ambient tem-
perature, all the night.
6. Conclusion
In this work, an experimental study was conducted to evaluate
the effect of the solar energy accumulator (solar air collector with
PCM) in the solar dryer climatic conditions at night. A new solar air
collector using a PCM cavity was operated and integrated in an
indirect solar dryer. The indirect solar dryer performance is inves-
tigated in two different cases: with PCM and without PCM. The
solar dryer was tested under no load conditions. The results show
that during the night, the climatic conditions (relative humidity
47
Drying chamber relative humidity (HRdc)
Ambient relative humidity (RHa)
Without solar energy accumulator
10 12 14 16 18 20 22 00 02 04 06
Local time (hh)
and temperature) in the drying chamber attaint the ambient cli-
matic condition, in the case of the ISD without PCM. The daily en-
ergy efficiency of the solar energy accumulator reached 33.9%,
while the daily exergy efficiency reached 8.5%. At the same time
(nighttime), the solar energy accumulator contributes to maintain
the relative humidity in the drying chamber to 17e34.5% lower
than the ambient relative humidity and also to maintain the drying
chamber temperature to 4e16
C higher than the ambient tem-
perature. It could be concluded that, the ISD with paraffin wax as
energy storage material is an effective design to yield more favor-
able conditions for the drying process compared to the ISD without
energy storage. The study will be further carried out with different
PCM available in the market and their performance will be
observed in the future works.
Acknowledgments
We thank the Thermal Processes Laboratory of the Research and
Technology Center for Energy in the Technopole of Borj Cedria of
Tunisia.
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