Abstract

Dried arecanut (Areca catechu) is widely used as a component of the betel leaf chewed in India. The arecanut processing industries are currently drying the nuts after boiling of nuts by open sun drying for 8 to 10 days. The moisture content of processed arecanut is reduced from 40 to 11 % during drying operation for safe storage and to maintain food quality. For the drying process, a solar cum biomass based dryer with a capacity of 1 tonne per batch was developed to meet the thermal energy requirement. The dryer consists of PAU (Punjab Agricultural University) packed bed model solar collector of 20m2 area, biomass burner, heat exchanger, air blower and hot air duct. The results showed the system to have a capacity to increase air temperature by 15-20°C above. In addition, the organoleptic evaluation reveals that the arecanut being dried in the solar cum biomass dryer system was completely protected from rain, insects and dust. The dried arecanut was of higher quality in terms of flavor and colour compared to open sun dried product, besides saving of time.

Keywords: Arecanut, Packed bed solar collector, Biomass gas stove