Engineering e-Transaction (ISSN 1823-6379)
Vol. 4, No. 2, December 2009, pp 73-80
Online at http://ejum.fsktm.um.edu.my
SOLAR TUNNEL FISH DRYER FOR SEASONAL APPLICATION IN THE
PERSPECTIVE OF BANGLADESH
M. A. Wazed1, M. T. Islam2 and N. Uddin2
1
Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, University of Malaya (UM), 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), 4349
Chittagong, Bangladesh
Email: awazed@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Dry fish is one of the major export items of
Bangladesh, a least developing country in south Asia.
Most of the dry fish industries in the country are using
direct sunlight for drying the fishes. The main
objectives of this research are: i) to design and to
fabricate a model type solar tunnel dryer like a solar air
heater; ii) to analyze the effectiveness of the dryer; and
iii) finally a comparison is performed with traditional
method of sun drying. The authors have constructed a
simple solar tunnel using locally available low cost
materials. The collector surface temperature, duct
temperature and ambient temperature, as well as
relative humidity with definite time interval are
measured. The maximum obtained surface and duct
temperatures are 5253C and 3738C, respectively.
The use of solar tunnel dryer leads to considerable
reduction of drying time in comparison to the drying in
direct sunlight. The fishes dried in the solar tunnel
dryer are completely protected from rain, insects and
dust. The quality of the dried fish in the tunnel dryer is
better than the sun-dried products.
Keywords: Solar dryer, drying fish, Bangladesh
1. INTRODUCTION
Fish is an important component of the daily diet and
the dried fish is an important source of protein in
Bangladesh. Being a country of rivers and floodplains
with a high potential of aquatic resources, fish plays a
very important role in the daily life of many people in
Bangladesh. The Bengali expression “Mache Bhate
Bengali”, or “Fish and Rice make a Bengali,”
illustrates this importance. Bangladesh produces
1,400,000 tonnes of fish annually mostly through
inland capture fisheries and aquaculture (Graaf and
Latif, 2002).
Annual production of inland and marine fish (fresh) in
Bangladesh is 1.025 million metric ton and about
0.915 million ton is used for internal consumption.
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Annual export of dried fish is about 1278 metric ton
and Bangladesh earns about 23.10 crore taka (local
currency) as foreign currency and it ranks the third of
the export of the country. In Bangladesh annual per
capita consumption of inland and marine fish is 8.2 kg.
Fish products account for 6% of the gross domestic
product (GDP), 12% of export earnings and 70-85% of
the animal protein intake in Bangladesh (Graaf, 2003).
Freshwater fish account for more than 50 percent of
dietary fish intake, and inland fisheries provide a
source of employment to nearly 13 million people
living in the floodplains.
Drying of fish is mainly carried out by traditionally
under open sun. Sun drying represents a low cost
processing technique to preserve fish (Jain and
Pathare, 2007). The traditional method used raised
bamboo made platform in the coastal areas of
Bangladesh. A substantial loss occurs in quantity and
quality. To avoid the infestation due to insect and larva
attack and for safe storage, commercial dried fish
producers apply insecticides including DDT in fish.
This fish is highly contaminated and creates broad
spectrum of environmental and health hazards.
Therefore, proper drying of fish is essential to save this
valuable source of protein by reducing the spoilage.
Figure 1 shows the fish production in Bangladesh.
The quality of the dried products is the most important
parameter in drying technology. Patil (1989) compared
the quality of peppers after sun drying, polythene solar
draying and solar cabinet drying. He found that the
solar cabinet drying offers some advantages over direct
sun drying in terms of better quality and faster rate of
drying. Jayaraman et al. (1992) compared ascorbic
acid retention in cauliflower, cabbage and bitter gourd
dried by three different methods: i) directly under the
sun, ii) under the sun in a black polythene tent, and iii)
in a drying cabinet with three solar collectors. They
reported that the direct exposure of these products to
the sun decreased the quality factors like vitamin
retention. The use of solar energy in an indirect way
may improve the quality of the end products.
Figure 1: Fish production (marine and freshwater) in
tones in Bangladesh (Source: FAO, FISHSTAT, 2007)
Efforts were made to introduce polythene tent solar
driers in coastal areas of Bangladesh. This dryer is
effective in controlling insect larva. But, it does not
provide any improvement in the performance of drying
although the temperature inside dryer is 7-20C higher
than the ambient temperature. The polythene tent solar
drier thus suffers from the limitation due to extremely
low buoyancy induced low airflow inside the dryer.
The most promising option of solar drying appears to
be a forced convection solar tunnel dryer. The
temperature of food during sun drying is usually 5-
150C above ambient temperature (Grabowski et al.,
2006)
Fish is a very important foodstuff in developing
countries, due to its high protein content and
nutritional value. Temperature is a very important
factor for accelerating the process of spoilage. The
spoilage reactions connecting on the death of the fish
proceed at very rapid rate. Fresh fish contains up to
80% of water. It is highly perishable material and
having a short storage life (Bala and Mondol, 2001).
When moisture content is reduced to 25%,
contaminating agents cannot survive and autotypic
activity is greatly reduced. However, to prevent mould
growth during storage, moisture content must be
reduced to15%. Typical species of fish can generally
withstand at temperature range of 45-50C before
proteins are denatured or cooking starts.
In Bangladesh, each year a large quantity of fish and
fish products are spoiled due to lack of proper
preservation and storage facility particularly during the
peak season of harvesting. Moreover, fishermen do not
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get legitimate return of their harvest during the peak
period for lack of preservation and transportation
facilities in the coastal areas of the country. Even
sometimes they just have to abandon the spoiled as it
becomes unfit for human consumption. Whatever the
amount of picks, it receives no value until the
consumer consumes as a food. Proper drying of freshly
collected fish can minimize the amount of fish spoiled.
It is estimated that about 30% (about 307,500 MT) of
the freshly harvested fish is spoiled every year due to
lack of proper preservation facility. About 40%
(71,750 MT, dry weight) of the remaining harvested
fish is dried. Among the dry fishes about 60% (43,050
MT) contaminated by both insects and insecticides and
they are not fit for human consumption.
The conventional sun drying system has limitations to
control the drying process and parameter, weather
uncertainties, high labor factors, drying areas, insect
infestation, control of dust and other foreign materials
and so on. However, open sun drying is widely
practiced in tropical and subtropical countries to
preserve agricultural products, where solar radiation is
convenient (Szulmaver, 1971) and where it is
abundant, inexhaustible, and environmental friendly
(Basunia and Abe, 2001).
A straight forward steady state analysis has been
adopted to evaluate the performance of different solar
dryers by using simple basic energy balance equations
by Joshi et al. (2004). The empirical results for the
same are shown in Gewali and Ramchandra (2004).
The literatures show that the solar tunnel dryer is the
most efficient one. The authors would like to refer the
readers to Sharma et al. (2009) and Ramana (2009) for
a comprehensive review on the solar dryers.
Figure 2: Average values of hourly solar radiation and
ambient temperatures
Bangladesh is a tropical country and the solar radiation
is abundant and inexhaustible throughout the year
(Figure 2). The average temperatures and rainfall is
much higher for April-October of a year (Figure 3).
Therefore, the solar drying would be the best option
for Bangladesh. Also the literatures show that the solar
tunnel dryer is the most efficient among the available
options. Hence the authors are highly motivated
towards this research.
In this article the authors fabricated a solar tunnel dryer
like a solar air heater, analyzed its performance and
compare with similar work.
Figure 3: Monthly average temperature and rainfall in
Bangladesh
2. PRESERVATION OF FISH
The different techniques of fish preservation are
discussed in this section.
2.1. Cooked Fish
Cooking provides short-term preservation of fish and it
usually allows for few days before any deterioration
becomes noticeable. Different methods are used for
cooking fish but the principle of the processes is
similar. The flesh of the fish softens, enzymes become
inactivated and the process kills many of the bacteria
present on the surface of the fish. Boiling and poaching
both involve cooking the fish in hot water whereas
frying uses hot oil. They are very simple and require
no more than basic-household equipment and are
therefore suitable for small-scale production.
2.2. Cooled/Frozen fish
The spoilage of fish is directly related to temperature.
Up to 40ºC, The higher the temperature, the faster the
spoilage. Above 40ºC the generated heat will destroy
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bacteria and enzymes. Any reduction in the
temperature prior to processing will maintain the
quality of the fish for longer.
Fish can be kept cool by covering it with clean, damp
sacking and placing it in the shade. Although this
method is simple and requires no special equipment,
the fish still begins to deteriorate within a few hours.
An alternative is to pack the fish with ice. This is an
effective method and preserves the fish for a longer
period of time.
Freezing is another method for cooling fish. This
technique provides long-term preservation, but it is
relatively expensive in terms of equipment and
operating costs. It is not recommended for the majority
of small-scale fisheries.
2.3. Cured Fish Products
Curing involves the techniques of drying, dry
salting/brining (soaking in salt solution) or smoking.
These may be used alone or in various combinations to
produce a range of products with a long shelf- life. For
example:
 Drying – Smoking – Drying
 Brining – Smoking – Drying
 Salting – Drying
 Salting – Drying –Smoking
These techniques reduce the water content in the flesh
of the fish, and thereby prevent the growth spoilage
microorganisms.
2.4. Dried Fish
The heat of the sun and movement of air remove
moisture, which causes the fish to dry. In order to
prevent spoilage, the moisture content needs to be
reduced to 25% or less. It depends on the oiliness of
the fish and whether it has been salted.
Traditionally, whole small fish or split large fish are
spread in the sun on the ground, or on mats, nets, roofs
or on raised racks. Sun drying does not allow very
much control over drying times, and it also exposes the
fish to attack by insects or vermin and there are all
possibilities of contamination by sand and dirt. Such
techniques are totally dependent upon the weather
conditions. The ideal is dry weather with low humidity
and clear sky.
2.5. Salted Fish
Most food poisoning bacteria cannot live in salty
conditions and a concentration of 6-10 percent salt in
the fish tissue will prevent their activity. The product is
preserved by salting and will have a longer shelf life.
However, a group of microorganisms known as
'halophytic bacteria' are salt loving and will spoil the
salted fish even at a concentration of 6-10 percent.
Salting requires minimal equipment, but the method
used is important. Salt can be applied in many different
ways. Traditional methods involve rubbing salt into the
flesh of the fish or making alternate layers. The
recommended levels of salt usage are 30-40 percent of
the prepared weight of the fish. However the
concentration of salt in the flesh is not sufficient to
preserve the fish, if it is not uniformly applied. A better
technique is brining. It involves immersing the fish
into a pre-prepared solution of salt (36 percent salt).
The advantage is that the salt concentration can be
more easily controlled and salt penetration is more
uniform. Brining is usually used in conjunction with
drying.
2.6. Smoked Fish
The preservative effect of the smoking process is due
to drying and the deposition of the natural chemicals of
wood smoke in the fish flesh. Smoke from the burning
wood contains a number of compounds, which inhibit
bacteria. Heat from the fire causes drying, and if the
temperature is high enough, the flesh becomes cooked.
Both of these factors prevent bacterial growth and
enzyme activity, which may cause spoilage.
Fish can be categorized as:
 Cold smoking. In this method, the temperature is
not high enough to cook the fish. It is not usually
higher than 35ºC.
 Hot smoking. In this method, the temperature is
high enough to cook fish.
Hot smoking is often the preferred method. This is
because the process requires less control than cold
processing and the shelf life of the hot-smoked
product is longer; because the fish is smoked until dry.
Hot smoking consumes more fuel than the cold-
smoking method. Traditionally, the fish would be
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placed with smoldering grasses or wood. Alteration,
fish may be laid or hung on bamboo racks in the
smoke of a fire.
2.7. Fermented Fish
Fermentation is a process by which beneficial bacteria
are encouraged to grow. These bacteria increase the
acidity of the fish and therefore prevent the growth of
spoilage and food-poisoning bacteria. Additionally,
salt is used to prevent the action of spoilage bacteria
and allow the fish enzymes and the beneficial acid-
producing bacteria to soften (break down) the flesh.
Fermentation is therefore the controlled action of the
desirable microorganisms in order to alter the flavor or
texture of the fish and extend the shelf life.
3. PERSPECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH IN
RESPECT TO BANGLADESH
Tropical area lying between the latitudes 350 north and
south, which have at least 2000 hours of bright
sunshine per year, are ideal for the utilization of sun
energy. In Bangladesh, monsoon starts from June to
September and the duration of cloudiness is more than
70% of the day. It may well be assumed that sunshine
would prevail 200 hours annually in most of the parts
of the country where the highest percentage would
occur from the middle of September to the middle of
April in a year.
In such cases the use of solar tunnel dryer leads to
considerable reduction of drying time in comparison to
direct sun drying. The fishes being dried in the solar
tunnel dryer are completely protected from rain, insect
and dust. The fishes dried in the tunnel dryer are of
quality-dried products as compared to sun-dried
products. Thus, this study demonstrates the potentiality
of solar tunnel drier for drying of fish in Bangladesh.
The foremost intension of this research is to design and
to fabricate a model type solar fish dryer to achieve the
following specific objectives:
i. To determine the effects of different pre-
treatment and drying parameters on the
quality of dried fish.
ii. To adopt and optimize the solar tunnel dryer
suitable for drying of fish for Bangladesh for
mass and medium scale commercial
production.
4. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
The authors have designed and constructed a solar
tunnel fish dryer. The size of this dryer is:-
180cm×90cm ×100cm; Duct size 180cm×90cm×30cm;
roof 25cm high; and slope 30º with horizontal (Figure
4). The dryer is fabricated using a corrugated GI sheet
air-heating collector, a tunnel- drying unit and small
fan to provide the required airflow over the product to
be dried. These are connected in series. Both the
collector and the drying unit are covered with
polyethylene. Black paint is used as an absorber in the
collector. The products to be dried are placed in
Vertical and horizontal in the tunnel dryer. Glass wool
is used as insulation material to reduce the heat loss
from the dryer. The whole system is placed
horizontally on a raised platform. Air at required flow
rate is supplied by an AC fan. The power requirement
to drive the fan is low. The cover is fixed like a sloping
roof to prevent the dryer unit from rain. Solar radiation
passes through the transparent cover of the collector
and heats the absorber. Ambient air is forced through
the collector. Heat is transferred from absorber to air in
the collector. The heated air from collector while
passing over the fish absorbs moisture from the fish.
Solar radiation also passes through the transparent
cover of the dryer and heats the fishes. This changes
the drying rate and the temperature in the dryer.
Figure 4: Solar Tunnel Fish Drier
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The solar tunnel dryer is installed at Chittagong
University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), a
public university in Chittagong, Bangladesh. The dryer
was placed on a raised platform and it was not under
the shade of trees or buildings from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The full scale experimental runs on solar dryer were
carried out in the months of November – December,
2008 and January, 2009.
5. METHODOLOGY
Important parameters affecting the performance of the
dryer are measured. Mercury thermometer (0C to
100C) is used to measure the air temperature along
the flow direction inside the dryer. The relative
humidity of air is measured by using a Phychrometer
(0C to 50C). Anemometer (speed range from 0.3m/s
to 40m/s) is employed to measure the velocity of air at
the outlet of the dryer. Weight loss of the fishes being
dried is noted at a suitable interval with an electronic
balance. The sun dried control samples are weighted as
well. All these data are recorded at one-hour interval.
The moisture contents are measured at the end of each
run of experiments by air oven (model No.-979, China)
method. Maximum air velocity is 0.5 m/s; temperature
is not exceeding 52ºC and Moisture is within range 7
to 15% at least.
Experimental drying runs were conducted on silver
Jew (powa) fish. The fish was treated with salt and it
was initially treated with dry salt (salt to fish ratio of
1:4) and stacked for about 16 hours before drying. This
salt penetrates into the flesh and denatures the enzymes
and destroys a major portion of the bacteria originally
present on the flesh because of their sensitivity to salt.
The inclusions inside the fishes were removed before
salt treatment. A thick stick is inserted all through the
fishes and then washed well. The drying was started
usually at 9.0 am and discontinued at 4.0 pm for each
day. To compare the performance of the tunnel drier
with that of the sun drying, control samples of fish
were placed on trays in a raised platform beside the
drier. Both experimental and control samples were
dried simultaneously under the same condition vertical
and horizontal.
6. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The experiment was conducted in November –
December, 2008 and January, 2009. The relative
humidity (RH), ambient temperature (T a), Inlet
temperature of the duct (Tdin), Outlet temperature of
the duct (Tdout) and the surface temperature of the
absorber plate (Ts) were measured. The variation of
temperatures and relative humidity with day time has
been studies.
Figure 5 shows the variation of the ambient
temperature, surface temperature, inlet & outlet
temperatures of duct and relative humidity with day
time for two different days. It is found that peak
surface temperature of the drier is 58C at 13:00PM.
The surface temperature increases up to 13:00 PM and
then starts to decrease.
Figure 5(a): Variation of Temperatures and Relative
Humidity with Day Time (December 17, 2008)
During the time of experiment maximum relative
humidity obtained 60% which is decreases with day
time up to 12:30 PM, maximum ambient temperature
obtained 30C at 13:00 PM, maximum inlet
temperature of the duct obtained 3839C at 13:00
PM, maximum outlet temperature of the duct obtained
35C at 13:00 PM and maximum surface temperature
of the collector plate obtained 58C at 13:00 PM.
Whenever dust fall on the collector surface, the
efficiency of the collector plate decreases gradually. So
it should be care to clean the collector surface before
start the drying process. It is most important to clean
the collector surface every two or three hour’s interval.
The efficiency of the collector plate is at maximum
when the surface of the collector is neat and clean.
Figure 6 shows the variation of the air temperature
along the length of both collector and dryer for
different solar radiation for a typical experimental run.
The temperature inside the collector increases along
the length of the collector from the inlet of the
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collector. However, the drying air temperature
decreases along the drying tunnel during the early
phase of drying (9 a.m.) and then it becomes almost
constant throughout the drier length. As a result the
fishes were almost uniformly dried along the length of
the dryer.
Figure 5(b): Variation of Temperatures and Relative
Humidity with Day Time (January 21, 2009)
Figure 6: Variations of air temperature along the length
of solar tunnel drier for a typical experimental run
Comparison of the moisture contents of fishes in the
solar tunnel dryer with those obtained by the
traditional method for a typical experimental run
during drying is shown in Figure 7. The moisture
content of salt treated fishes of a typical experimental
run reached to 14.95% (w.b.) from 65.32% (w.b.) in 30
hours of drying in the solar tunnel drier while it took
38 hours of drying to bring down the moisture content
of a similar sample in the traditional method. The
faster drying of fishes inside the solar tunnel dryer is
due to the fact that the fishes in the dryer received
energy both from the collector and from incident solar
radiation, while the control samples received energy
only from incident radiation and lost significant
amount of energy to the environment.
Figure 8 shows the comparison of moisture content
(wb) with the similar work of Bala and Mondol (2001)
in the month of November. Though the year is
different, the environmental parameters do not
fluctuate much. It is pellucid that the pattern of the line
almost same, nevertheless there are variations in their
values.
Figure 7: Moisture content reduction of fish (DV, SV)
with time interval
Figure 8: Moisture content reduction of fish (DV, SV)
with time interval (26.11.08 to 28.11.08) compared
with Bala and Mondol (2001) (26.11.00 to 28.11.00)
Proximate analysis of both fresh and dried fish was
conducted and solar dried fish shows better quality.
Chemical compositions of the dried fish represent the
fact that the fish dried in the solar tunnel dryer was a
good quality product for human consumption. In all
cases the quality of fishes dried in the tunnel drier was
a quality dried product as compared to sun dried. Thus,
this study demonstrated the potentiality of the solar
tunnel drier for drying of fishes in Bangladesh.
7. CONCLUSION
After the design and fabrication of the solar tunnel
dryer, its operations have been observed. Production of
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dried fishes is assured. From the experimental results
the following conclusion can be drawn:
1. The use of solar tunnel fish drier leads to a
considerable reduction of the drying time than
conventional sun drying.
2. In all the cases fishes dried in the solar tunnel
dryer were completely protected from rain,
insects and dust. The dried fishes were a high
quality product.
3. This dryer is simple in construction and it can
be constructed using locally available
materials by the local craftsman. The solar
tunnel dryer can be operated by a photovoltaic
module independent of the electrical grid. The
photovoltaic system has the advantage that the
temperature of the drying air is automatically
controlled by the solar radiation. The
photovoltaic driven solar tunnel drier must be
optimized for efficient operation.
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