Drying of the mint and sweet basil with new designed air collectors and determining of the drying parameters

In this study, drying parameters of mint and sweet basil were investigated as experimental and theoretical using solar drying system. A forced convection solar dryer system consisting of new designed solar air collectors with different surface profiles, a circulation fun and a drying cabinet are used for the experiments. The drying experiments were conducted at different air mass flow rates at the selected appropriate drying temperatures of mint and sweet basil. For the drying data obtained by experimental results of mind and sweet basil, new mathematical drying model which was developed as a function of none dimension numbers, was compared with ten different drying models in the literature. It was shown that the results were in good agrement.