The invention relates to automatic food
drying systems primarily designed to dry
food products using
solar energy. In fact, these systems mainly utilize alternating plate solar collectors as a
heat exchanger. The said
system is composed of a control part (CP) and an operational part (OP), where the operational part consists of: main glass, upper cover, upper absorbent plate, lower absorbent plate, secondary glass,
chimney,
drying chamber, hot air duct, fixing support and
drying chamber door. The innovative feature of this
system lies in the design of two alternating absorbent plates, with double
glazing on the lower plate. This improves the efficiency of the
solar air collector and, consequently, the drying process. The alternating absorbent plates enhance the mixing of
fresh air with air heated by solar
radiation, thus optimizing the collector's
thermal efficiency. Double
glazing creates an increased
greenhouse effect, reducing heat loss by
convection, which improves the thermal and hydrodynamic performance of the solar collector.