Improving the Drying Mechanism for Seaweed Through the Utilization of Closed-Drying with Modified Solar Air Heaters

Abstract

Direct drying for seaweed is preferable for local farmers since it costs no additional processing. However, the degradation of the dried product causes economic drawbacks, which means further methods can be developed to solve the problem. In this work, improvement is made by using a closed drying method for seaweed products and combined with a solar collector as an air heater. The high evaporation increases the humidity within the drying chamber, which improves up to 17.8%. In contrast, the supplied dry air from the collector reduces the humidity within the drying chamber, which becomes lower (4.4%) than the ambient. The closed method indicates a maximum temperature of 48.6°C and 53.7°C (with collector), while the ambient temperature is only 36.8°C. It makes the closed drying receive more solar energy, resulting in more water evaporation from the product up to 87.5% compared to the direct method (70.8%). It provides a simple and low-cost approach that can maximize the harvested solar energy for the drying process. It is suitable for supporting local farmers and maintaining sustainability through renewable energy.