Experimental evaluation of a two-stage indirect solar dryer with reheating coupled with HDH desalination system for remote areas

In the present study, the performance evaluations of a two-stage indirect solar dryer with reheating coupled with humidification-dehumidification (HDH) water desalination systems are experimentally investigated. The distillate water production, drying the products and energy-saving represents the main objective of the present experimental work. Due to problems in the availability of distillate water and energy sources in remote areas, the proposed system represents a good option for remote areas. The proposed system consists of two sub-systems: (i) two-stage indirect solar dryer with reheating, which can use to remove the moisture contents from the plants and fruit; (ii) the HDH water desalination, which can use to production of distillate water. The experimental results show that, as the air flow increases from 50 to 75 m3/h, the distillate water productivity increases from 29.55 to 42.3 l/day and the moisture removal from the product increases from 8.33 to 12.37 kg/day during the period 8:00 am to 7:00 pm. Use a two-stage dryer with reheating improved the moisture removal from the product by 71.78% in average as compared only to the first stage of drying unit. Also, the gain output ratio varies over ranges of 1.24-1.79 and 0.97-1.38 for the proposed system and the HDH desalination system only, when the airflow rate increases from 50 to 75 m3/h. The gain output ratio of the proposed system improved by 29% in average as compared only to the HDH desalination system.