I have spent the last few day settling into Ujire and catching up with the progress of the Solar Dryer project from the other interns in the SELCO lab. Most of my time has been spent reading the reports from other interns and the experiments they have completed. As well as this I have been reading about different dryer designs and efficient ways to dry food.
Previous interns have already managed to get the solar collector working reasonably well. What is not working so well is the biomass part of the dryer. A stove heats the drying compartment, taking moisture from the food with it, however the stove only burns for a short period of time. One of my tasks is to retain the heat in the dryer for longer, so the biomass burner does not have to be lit as often.
Yesterday was particularly exciting as I travelled to a local aluminium workshop in the next town with another SELCO intern to collect a heat exchanger (yes – a HEAT EXCHANGER) for the dryer. Getting this complex shape was not an easy task for the craftsmen in the workshop.
Over the next few days, I'm going to be coming up with some new ideas & designs for the dryer and hopefully conduct a few experiments to test it.
The food has been fantastic (even if I would occasionally like something non-spicy for breakfast) and so far I have not become ill!
Thanks for posting. Industrial Thermal Engineers is a world renowned manufacturer and exporter of a wide range of drying and heating machinery since last 33 years. Biomass Dryer
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