A review of solar dryers developed for grape drying

This paper attempts to review various solar dryers developed exclusively for grape drying on a normal scale. Many popular varieties of solar dryers, certain typical models as well as traditional methods practiced for drying grapes are presented in this paper. Technical and economical results have proved that solar drying of grapes is quite feasible. Commercialization of solar drying of grapes has not gained momentum as expected, may be due to high initial investment and low capacity of the dryers. Even, the farmer’s acceptance of solar dryers developed is not encouraging. Exhaustive research and development work has to be carried out in order to make solar drying of grapes economical and user friendly. There has been a remarkable achievement in solar drying of grapes due to sustained research and development associated with the adoption of advanced technologies. A review of various solar drying models for grapes is thus necessitated.