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Drying of Spirulina with a continuous infrared-assisted refractance window™ dryer equipped with a photovoltaic-thermal solar collector

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Abstract

Drying is one of the effective techniques in increasing Spirulina shelf life. Performance of a continuous infrared-refractance window™ dryer coupled with a double-pass photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) solar collector was investigated at different drying air flow rates (0.036, 0.071, and 0.107 m3/s/m2 collector) and Spirulina feeding rates (1.2 L/h, 1.8 L/h, and 2.4 L/h). The maximum electrical and thermal efficiencies of the PVT collector, solar electricity fraction, and solar heat fraction were found to be 11.91%, 68.47%, 0.76, and 0.78, respectively. The average specific energy consumption values ranged between 1.21 and 2.437 kWh/kg. The yellowness index (b*) of the dried products decreased by 63.67%, and the redness index (a*) increased by 39.4% when the feeding rate was increased from 1.2 to 2.4 L/h. The highest phycocyanin content was approximately 11.4 g/100 g at the feeding rate of 2.4 L/h and the air flow rate of 0.107 m3/s/m2 collector.

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Availability of data and material

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

A:

Area (m2)

a*:

Redness (dimensionless)

b:

Width of PV panel (m)

b*:

Yellowness (dimensionless)

C:

Specific heat (J/kg K)

d:

Depth of air channel (m)

Dh :

Hydraulic diameter (m)

dt:

Experiment time (s)

dx:

Unit length (m)

EPV :

Electrical energy of the PV module during the tests (kJ)

ESh :

Thermal energy produced in PVT collector (kJ)

ET :

Total energy consumption (kJ)

G:

Solar irradiance (W/m2)

H:

Height of fin (m)

h:

Heat transfer coefficient (W/m2K)

k:

Thermal conductivity (W/mk)

L:

Length (m)

L*:

Lightness (dimensionless)

l:

Latent heat (kJ/kg)

m:

Mass (kg)

ṁ:

Mass flow rate (kg/s)

Nu:

Nusselt number (dimensionless)

OD:

Optical density

PF:

Packing factor of PV panel (dimensionless)

PPV :

Electrical power generated by PVT collector (W)

Q̇:

Useful thermal power gain of PVT collector (W)

S:

Radiative heat flux (W/m2)

SEC:

Specific energy consumption (kWh/kg)

SEF:

Solar electricity fraction (decimal)

SHF:

Solar heat fraction (decimal)

SMER:

Specific moisture extraction rate (kg/kWh)

T:

Temperature (K)

t:

Thickness of fin (m)

U:

Heat losses coefficient (w/m2K)

UC:

Uncertainty of instrument

V:

Velocity of wind (m/s)

V̇Volume air fl:

Ow rate (m3/s/m2 collector)

MF:

Mass fraction (decimal)

α:

Absorption coefficient (decimal)

δ:

Width of Mylar (m)

ε:

Emissivity (decimal)

ζ:

Efficiency of PVT collector (decimal)

\({\eta }_{fin}\) :

Efficiency of fin (decimal)

σ:

Stefan-Boltzmann constant (5.67 × 10−8 W/m2 K4)

τ:

Transmission coefficient (decimal)

Φ:

Effectiveness factor of fins (dimensionless)

a:

Drying air

amb:

Ambient

au:

Upper airstream

al:

Lower airstream

bp:

Back plate

c:

Convective

el:

Electrical

g:

Glass

th:

Thermal

i:

Inlet air

IR:

Infrared

o:

Outlet air

p:

Absorber plate

r:

Radiative

s:

Sky

SM:

Spirulina maxima

sw:

Side walls

v:

Vaporization

w:

Wind

wd:

Evaporated water

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the Research Council of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman for financial support.

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The authors did not receive any fund for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosystems Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran

    Zeinab Rezvani & Hamid Mortezapour

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran

    Mehran Ameri

  3. Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran

    Hamid-Reza Akhavan

  4. Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Biosystems Engineering, Bursa Uludağ University, TR, 16059, Bursa, Turkey

    Selçuk Arslan

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  1. Zeinab Rezvani
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  2. Hamid Mortezapour
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  4. Hamid-Reza Akhavan
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Contributions

Zeinab Rezvani—Design and development of the concept, carrying out the experiments, writing the manuscript. Hamid Mortezapour—Supervising the project, discussing the results and contribution to the final manuscript. Mehran Ameri—Helping supervise the project, discussing the results, and contributing to the final manuscript. Hamid-Reza Akhavan—Helping supervise the project, discussing the food analysis results, and contributing to the final manuscript. Selçuk Arslan—Contributing to the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hamid Mortezapour.

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Rezvani, Z., Mortezapour, H., Ameri, M. et al. Drying of Spirulina with a continuous infrared-assisted refractance window™ dryer equipped with a photovoltaic-thermal solar collector. Heat Mass Transfer 58, 1739–1755 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-022-03210-5

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