EXPIREMENTAL SETUP OF AN AIR SOURCE HEAT PUMP FOR DRYING BANANA CHIPS

Dried fruit is a popular product which is high demand in both domestic and international markets, unfortunately the conventional drying methods have unavoidable challenges such as the low drying quality and high energy consumption etc. To achieve the higher quality of dried products and higher energy efficiency of drying facilities, the heat pump drying is recognized as the effective way. During this research, an air source heat pump dryer was designed and constructed to investigate the characteristics and performance of the heat pump system as well as the drying process. The developed drying system has two options to be operated in two modes - open and closed modes. In this paper only the open mode was presented, based on the experimental investigation, the heat pump has an very attractive energy saving potential, its COP is about 8, which means the energy saving is by about 85% compared to the traditional drying methods, the drying process and drying rate for banana chips at different drying conditions were also obtained experimentally.