Energy and Exergy Assessment of a Modular Offshore Seaweed Solar Dryer

Abstract

This research had aimed to study and design a modular offshore solar dryer to answer the need for a more efficient dryer and for a more lenient one to assemble with aid of energy and exergy analyses. Most of the seaweed had reached the target moisture ratio of 40 % after varying drying periods, the longest of which had been observed after five days of testing, which had been 9.5 h per day. In the testing, the upper tray was the fastest in terms of drying speed. The testing had also showed that the lesser seaweed, the faster the drying time. In the first few runs, the amount of seaweed that had been placed in each tray had been higher compared to the last run. The average maximum temperature in the dryer had been observed to be 36.86 °C with the least relative humidity at 61.02 %. The average dryer performance had been discovered to be 47.68 % while the exergy efficiency ranges from 1.96 % to 93.58 %.