Study the effect of two types of solar dryer on some quality characteristics of apple slices

Abstract

The research has carried out at the department of Rural Engineering at the Faculty of Agriculture, Damascus University in 2016 to investigate the performance of two types of solar dryers (The first one has heat storage material, while the other has no heat storage material) on some quality attributes of apple slices, also to test two thickness slices of Golden delicious apples (5 mm and 10 mm) during the drying process. The study showed a decrease in the time required to complete the drying slices using the solar dryer with a heat storage compared with the dryer without heat storage with reduce 5 hours for the thickness 10 mm, also there was a significant increase in the rehydration ratio for the slice thickness of 10 mm compared with the other of 5 mm, where the rehydration ratio of slices with 10 mm thickness in the dryer with heat storage material was 3.89 and 2.71 for the slices' thickness 5 mm, as the rehydration ratio of slices with 10 mm thickness in the dryer without heat storage material 3.86 and 2.76 for the slices' thickness 5 mm.

Finally, both types dryer and the thickness of the slices has no significant effect on the content of total acidity of the slices.