Abstract
A developed design of solar dryer with water storage heat unit was conducted to can operate the drying process continually at day and night using the stored heat. It is used to avoid the problems of sun drying as dust, pests, poor quality for dried products and long time for process. This design could provide also further improvement for the performance of the pervious same type of solar dryers. It has the following advantages such as: movable to can be directed according to sun's angle, besides it could connect to photovoltaic modules and batteries to can store energy and operate dc fan and dc water pump in the drying system. It is found suitable for drying agricultural products as Cantaloupe. The average of daily Photovoltaic (PV) efficiency during daytime was 9.1%, collector efficiency 54.38% and dryer efficiency was 23.32%. Environmental and thermal analysis for the solar drying system were done to investigate its performance. The payback time of energy was 1.21 years and CO2 mitigation over the life-time was 36.58 tons. The time of the dried cantaloupe from this solar dryer is shorter than the dried products in the open sun. This system is useful for farmers in arid areas, and non-electrical zones.