DOI: 10.36347/sjet

Pages: 91-97

Drying of moringa leaves is a preservation activity done by farmers and herbal practitioners. The most common way to do this is to place the leaves on a mat, floors etc. and leave it in the open to dry. This process takes a long time and makes the leaves subjected to attack by the weather, animals and insects. It also affects the quality, nutritional values and the potency level of the leave when exposed to the direct sunlight. This paper outlines systematic design and construction of indirect forced convention solar crop dyer for drying moringa leaves and presents the results of calculations of the design parameters. A batch of moringa leaves 2 kg by mass, having an initial moisture content of 80% wet basis from which 1.556 kg of water is required to be removed to have it dried to a desired moisture content of 10% wet basis, is used as the drying load in designing the dryer. A drying time of 24-30 h is assumed for the anticipated test location (Kumasi; 6.7oN, 1.6oW) with an expected average solar irradiance of 320 W/m2 and ambient conditions of 25oC and 77% relative humidity. A minimum of 0.62 m2 of solar collection area, according to the design, is required for an expected drying efficiency of 25%. The dryer was constructed using locally available materials. It is recommended that a test under full loading conditions should be carried out in order to know if all the design parameters have been met and laboratory experiment should also be done to know the effects on the nutritional values of the moringa leaves when sun dried and solar dried