ORIGINAL RESEARCH
The Designing and Optimization of Solar Dryers
for Improving the Quality of Dates in Khairpur,
Pakistan
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1
Department of Physics, Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan
2
Department of Physics, Research Complex, Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad, Pakistan
3
Institute of Chemistry, Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan
Submission date: 2021-12-21
Final revision date: 2022-03-14
Acceptance date: 2022-04-05
Online publication date: 2022-07-13
Publication date: 2022-09-01
Corresponding author
Zubeda Bhatti
Department of Physics, Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2022;31(5):4043-4050
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ABSTRACT
The present work was conducted to develop an efficient solar dryer for improving date fruit quality
of Khairpur, Pakistan. Three different dryers were developed i.e., a natural convectional solar dryer,
direct solar dryer and an oven solar dryer comprising air velocity of 0.5 m/s, 0.6 m/s and 0.4 m/s
respectively. The temperature inside the three dryers significantly increased with the increase in time
interval from 2 to 10 hrs. An average temperature ranged from 40.4 to 41.4ºC after 2 hrs which was
significantly higher (p<0.0001) than the air temperature outside (36.4ºC) the three dryers. Moreover,
increased up to 47.9ºC after 10 hrs of interval. Average highest temperature recorded in oven dryer
was 41.4, 41.9, 45.8, 41.8 and 47.9 after a time interval of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10hrs respectively. The highest
solar radiation was observed as 985 W/m2 at 2:30 pm and average solar radiation was found to be
791 W/m2. The highest percentage of total sugar (67.7%), non-reducing sugars (18.1%) and reducing
sugars (49.54%), proteins (31%) and calcium quantity (32.59 μg/g) was found in conventional dryers,
which was followed by (66.88%) of total sugars,( 49.6%) of reducing sugars and (17.61%) non-reducing
sugars in direct dryer and (2.19%) of proteins and (22.76) μg/g of calcium in oven dryer. The results
revealed that the drying natural oven solar dryer provided a good quality dates with satisfactory and
competitive to enforce convective solar drying process. The drying time found to be approximately
8 hours daily and total 5 days taken to complete process of drying dates presents the advantage of being
able to avoid the discontinuity of the treatment and to discard the night conservation problems. Owing
to its low cost and green energy use, this study offers an efficient alternative to convectional drying
under open sunlight for making quality dates.