Designing, manufacturing and performance experiments of a dryer (system unit) for redpepper

In this study, redpeppers were dried in a heat pump dryer suplied solar energy. Redpeppers were dried from initial moisture content (10,81 g water/g dry matter) to final moisture content (0,16 g water/g dry matter) by using the heat pipe solar collector and the air to air heat pump system. 24 h drying period in the drying system was provided the heat pump support. In PID controlled dryer, air velocity changed according to the temperature value regulated in process control device. Redpeppers were dried at 50 oC dry bulb temperature and average 0,4 m/s air velocity in a period of 210 min. According to experiment results, average heating coefficient performance (COPwh) and specific moisture extraction rate (SMERws) were calculated for whole system as 2,24 and 0,209 kg/kWh respectively.