Development And Evaluation Of Charcoal Oven Dryer With Manual Blower

ABSTRACT

A charcoal dryer was developed with a manual blower and used to dry fish and okra on two trays. 570g of sliced and whole okra and 1.610kg of sliced and whole fish. The sliced was reduced to 3cm thickness and placed at different trays and subjected to drying for 5 hours, moisture loss was determine every 30 munities of drying, temperature and relative humidity of the chamber was monitored while the blower was stroked 10 times every ten munities. The dryer achieved a drying temperature of 67-69°c while the exit temperature was 44-48°c. the total moisture loss was, between 170g-175g for sliced materials while 134-140g was for whole materials for the same 5 hours of drying. Drying efficiency was 59%, while relative humidity was between 48-67% and varies between points. The dryer was effective at 59%.