A review of new technologies, models and experimental investigations of solar driers

An attempt is made to review various aspects of solar driers applied to drying of food products at small scale. Popular types of driers in Asia-Pacific region, and new types of driers with improved technologies are discussed. The open sun drying and some alternate solutions are presented. The various aspects considered for modeling and experimental investigations carried out on various food products are also presented. Finally, the performance evaluation of the drier is discussed in detail. It is found that there is a shorter way of estimating the performance of a drier. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.