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Waste in the food supply chain is estimated to be about 30-40% of the total food production, which aggravates the world hunger and increases waste management burden and environmental impact. Despite the dire food scarcity, majority of this food waste takes place in developing countries because of the lack of appropriate and affordable preservation techniques. Traditional open sun drying is the most popular food-reservation technique to the local farmers due to near-zero capital cost and cheap labor cost. However, this method is highly energy intensive, unhygienic, and time demanding. The high energy consumption resulting from uncontrolled simultaneous heat, mass, and momentum transfer processes in traditional drying systems highlights the necessity of pursuing sustainability in drying process targeting reduced energy consumption, environmental and social impacts. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the sustainable food drying technologies based on renewable energy sources, with emphasis on the developing countries. It was observed that the integration of thermal energy storage with heat pump makes the integrated drying system more efficient, and dries food with better quality. Likewise, advanced integrated drying systems, such as, solar with microwave, and heat pump with microwave make the drying process more cost and quality competent. Finally, impact of resource distribution and governmental incentives for renewable energy use in sustainable drying is discussed.

Internal mixing twin-fluid atomiser is known to be one of the prominent atomisers for the generation of spray or spray-like dispersion from bulk liquids. This paper designs and investigates the per...

Energy insufficiency is obstructing the socio-economic and industrial improvement of Bangladesh. Renewable energy contributes about 560 Megawatt (MW) of the total electricity production of 20,430 M...

Water removal rate during drying depends on the microstructural pathways of water migration from inside the food materials. The water removal rate also depends on the mechanical properties of plant tissue. There is no literature that shows the interrelationship between viscoelastic property and transport phenomena during drying. In this study, the influence of viscoelastic property of plant-based food material on transport phenomena during drying has been experimentally investigated. Granny Smith apple, pears, and beet root has been taken as the sample in this study. A 2 kN Instron universal testing machine and ImageJ software were used in order to measure and analyze the viscoelasticity of the samples. Three different fruits Granny Smith apple, pears, and beet root show different viscoelastic properties along with different energy loss due to hysteresis. A positive relationship was found between energy loss due to viscoelastic nature of materials and drying kinetics. This correlation can be explained by the nature of the cell wall stiffness that facilitates or hinders the water migration in mechanical and thermal energy applications.

Food is one of the indispensable commodities for human existence. Insufficient production and lack of efficacious preservation system of food are the main causes of deprivation in Bangladesh. Bangl...

Today, urbanised people spend most of their time in indoor environments, and the risk of exposure to toxic materials in an indoor environment is of great concern. This paper considers sources for t...

Transition to alternative energy is receiving serious attention globally and in this very way, biodiesel from inedible neem can be an alternative to conventional liquid fuels as it contains 30–45% ...

Improved cooking stoves (ICSs) advance the cooking system significantly in Bangladesh. However, the comparative performance analyses of ICSs of Bangladesh are not available in the literature. In th...

A hybrid energy system named as SAH embraces the features of solar and thermal devices to generate electrical and thermal energies simultaneously. Recently, some SAH has developed with higher efficiency but less feasible to the developing countries due to higher installation cost. Here, a cheaper SAH with more capability of utilising the solar energy and enhanced efficiency by incorporating fin with the SAH has developed. SAH performances have been analysed experimentally by varying the air mass flow rate from 0.0132 to 0.02166 kg/s for the both fin and without fin attached condition. During mass flow rate of 0.02166 kg/s, maximum efficiency for the collector, photovoltaic cell and the overall efficiency of the system has been recorded as 34.25%, 6.48%, and 35.26% with fin and 28.07%, 4.10%, and 29.37% without fin, respectively. This study would assist the researcher for further improvement of the SAH and guide the consumer to select the appropriate SAH.