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Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar

Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University popularly known as HAU, is one of Asia's biggest agricultural universities, located at Hisar in the Indian state of Haryana. It is named after India's seventh Prime Minister, Chaudhary Charan Singh. It is a leader in agricultural research in India and contributed significantly to Green Revolution and White Revolution in India in the 1960s and 70s. It has a very large campus and has several research centres throughout the state. It won the Indian Council of Agricultural Research's Award for the Best Institute in 1997. HAU was initially a campus of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. After the formation of Haryana in 1966, it became an autonomous institution on February 2, 1970 through a Presidential Ordinance, later ratified as Haryana and Punjab Agricultural Universities Act, 1970, passed by the Lok Sabha on March 29, 1970. A. L. Fletcher, the first Vice-Chancellor of the university, was instrumental in its initial growth.

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Subject: Processing and Food Engineering × Author: Nitesh × End date: 2014 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Development of a desiccant integrated solar dryer
    (CCSHAU, 2012) Nitesh; Yadav, Y.K.
    A desiccant integrated solar dryer was developed and its performance was studied under the climatic conditions of Hisar, India. The system consisted of flat plate solar collector, drying chamber and desiccant unit. Drying with solar heated air is satisfactory during sunshine hours and to continue this process through the night-time desiccant was integrated within the drying system. The desiccant was developed from 60% bentonite, 20% vermiculite, 10% CaCl2 and 10% cement. The regeneration studies of developed desiccant were carried out for moisture adsorption at 30°C and 96% RH for 144 h and moisture desorption at 40°C, 50°C, 60°C, 70°C and 80°C for 8 h. The maximum adsorption capacity of desiccant was 35.12% (db) and it was efficiently regenerated by solar energy. The dryer was operated in two modes sunshine hours and off-sunshine hours. During sunshine hours the hot air from flat plate solar collector was forced into the drying chamber and simultaneously the desiccant unit received solar radiations directly for regeneration. In off-sunshine hours, the dryer was operated by circulating the air inside the drying chamber through the desiccant bed by blower fan in a closed loop. Performance of desiccant integrated solar dryer was observed at three different air mass flow rates of 0.010 kg/s, 0.015 kg/s and 0.020 kg/s for day and night operations. In desiccant integrated solar dryer 10 kg of green peas were dried from initial moisture content of 75% (wb) to 5%(wb) in 18 h at air mass flow rate of 0.020 kg/s whereas in solar dryer without desiccant unit it took 30 cumulative hours as the drying continued for 2 sunshine days. The average collector thermal efficiency and dryer thermal efficiency were 62.18% and 52.21%, respectively at air mass flow rate of 0.020 kg/s. The pickup efficiency of dryer varied from 18.17% to 68.25% and specific moisture extraction rate of 1.4 kg/kWh at air mass flow rate of 0.020 kg/s. In the drying experiments it was observed that 68% of moisture was removed by hot air using solar energy and remaining by the desiccant material at air mass flow rate of 0.020 kg/s. The green peas dried in desiccant integrated solar dryer had higher overall acceptability and rehydration ratio as compared to drying in solar dryer without desiccant unit.