Analysis of Thin Layer Mathematical Modelling for Mint Leaves Using Solar Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) System

Solar energy has great potential to meet energy demand of world. Solar energy is converted into electricity as well as thermal energy through PVT technology. This thermal energy is also used to food preservation as drying process. Drying process is a convoluted cycle where heat and mass exchange inside dried substance from its surface to the surrounding atmosphere by used transport mechanism. There are several methods to describe the behaviour of drying substance. Thin layer drying model is most important tool to describe mathematical modelling of drying process. In this paper, the experimental moisture ratios data have fitted to three drying models. The drying experiments have carried out on mint leaves with initial moisture content 88.5% (w.b.) and reduced its moisture content 10% (w.b.) with the use of triangular duct semi-transparent PVT system. Temperature achieved by hot air in the dryer have range of 40–62 °C. The coefficient of models has evaluated by three non-linear regression method in two spaces (hot air dryer, open sun drying) to find out the most suitable moisture ratio model. On the bases of Wang and Singh model, the value of statistical parameter R², RMSE, and chi-square have obtained 0.999846, 0.006831 and 0.0000622, and it is applicable to predict moisture content of mint leaves during solar drying of mint leaves.