A review on energy and exergy analysis of solar dying systems

Solar energy is a clean, abundant and freely available renewable energy sources. Energy and exergy analysis of solar thermal devices has drawn considerable interest among the researchers across the world. Solar drying is the promising option to utilize low grade energy to dry agricultural produces. Exergy analysis is a tool to access the efficient usage of solar energy. It is the property of the system, which gives the maximum power that can be distracted from the system when it is brought to a thermodynamic equilibrium state from a reference state. Using exergy analysis, based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics, it is possible to infer the true potential of different kinds of energies. In this paper, a holistic approach on energy and exergy analysis of solar dryer with case studies has been made. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.