Household-Level Solar Dryer Model Equipped With a Monitoring System Designed for Drying Fish

Date of Award

5-1-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electronics Engineering

First Advisor

Erees Queen B. Macabebe, PhD

Abstract

In the Philippines, drying of produce such as corn, rice and fish, is usually done through the traditional sun drying method due to the lack of an affordable alternative that can ensure better drying conditions. As such, this study designed and developed a household-level solar model dryer for drying fish such as dilis based on the feedback provided by the partner community. The solar dryer is equipped with a monitoring system that uses the recorded temperature and humidity in order to automatically control the fan speed of the solar dryer depending on the set conditions. The monitoring system mainly collected the data which helps verify the effectiveness of the solar dryer in drying produce. The data collected shows that the design solar dryer model was effective in trapping the heat inside the model since the March 9, 2023 experiment showed that the mean temperature inside the solar dryer for the top, middle and bottom rack were 38.9 °C, 36.5 °C and 36.9 °C respectively while the mean ambient temperature was 30.4 °C. Moreover, the March 15-16, 2023 experiment showed that the solar dryer model was able to dry the dilis 4 hours faster compared to the traditional sun-drying method. In terms of the costing of the solar dryer model, valuing it at PHP20,000.00 made it an affordable alternative as compared to the dryers currently available in the Philippine market. Overall, the household-level cabinet-type solar dryer satisfied the feedback from the partner community in terms of cost, portability, ease of use and scalability.

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