EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON SOLAR DRYING OF FISH USING SOLAR TUNNEL DRYER

This paper presents field level performance of the solar tunnel dryer for drying of fish. The dryer consists of a transparent plastic covered flat plate collector and a drying tunnel connected in series to supply hot air directly into the drying tunnel using four d.c. fans, operated by two 40 watt solar modules. This dryer can be used to dry upto 150 kg of fish and three sets of full scale field level drying runs for drying silver jew (Johnius argentatus) fish were conducted in February-March, 1999. The temperature of the drying air at the collector outlet varied from 35.1 ° C to 52.2 ° C during drying. The fish was initially treated with dry salt and stacked for about 16 hours before drying. The salt treated fish was dried to a moisture content of 16.78% (w.b.) from 67% (w.b.) in 5 days of drying in solar tunnel dryer as compared to 5 days of drying in the traditional method for comparable samples to a final moisture content of 32.84%. In addtion, the fish dried in the solar tunnel dryer was completely protected from rain, insects and dust, and the dried fish was a high quality product.