Blueprint: Solar-Regenerated Desiccant Grain Dryer (One-Tonne) — Build Specification

DESIGN BLUEPRINT — SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED — NOT BUILT. A full build specification for a solar-regenerated desiccant grain dryer for one tonne of smallholder grain, drawn from the source paper: William Alexander Aldred, 'A Solar-Regenerated Desiccant Dryer for One Tonne of Smallholder Grain: Water Budget, Sizing and Failure Limits', DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.24108462. The blueprint specifies the drying chamber for one tonne, a desiccant bed of 191.6 kg of silica gel (0.20 m deep, 1.37 m2 plan area), a 24.0 m2 flat-plate solar collector, the airflow path and fan duty (275.2 m3/h at 700 Pa, 119 W fan, 495 W peak photovoltaic supply), dimensions, materials with quantities, an assembly sequence, the dry/regenerate operating cycle (8 hours regeneration at 80 C, then 16 hours of adsorption drying, three cycles, 3.0 days), the operating envelope including the insolation failure floor of 3.15 kWh/m2/day and the schedule limit of 4.20 kWh/m2/day, tolerances, failure modes, and maintenance including gel regeneration and replacement. Every performance number comes from the source paper; derived build quantities are computed in the accompanying compute.py and recorded in results.json. No dryer built to this blueprint has been tested.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-11-10
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24110547
Primary Topic
Food Drying and Modeling
Type
article
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article

Blueprint: Solar-Regenerated Desiccant Grain Dryer (One-Tonne) — Build Specification

William Alexander Aldred
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Food Drying and Modeling
article

Blueprint: Solar-Regenerated Desiccant Grain Dryer (One-Tonne) — Build Specification

William Alexander Aldred
article en

Abstract

DESIGN BLUEPRINT — SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED — NOT BUILT. A full build specification for a solar-regenerated desiccant grain dryer for one tonne of smallholder grain, drawn from the source paper: William Alexander Aldred, 'A Solar-Regenerated Desiccant Dryer for One Tonne of Smallholder Grain: Water Budget, Sizing and Failure Limits', DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.24108462. The blueprint specifies the drying chamber for one tonne, a desiccant bed of 191.6 kg of silica gel (0.20 m deep, 1.37 m2 plan area), a 24.0 m2 flat-plate solar collector, the airflow path and fan duty (275.2 m3/h at 700 Pa, 119 W fan, 495 W peak photovoltaic supply), dimensions, materials with quantities, an assembly sequence, the dry/regenerate operating cycle (8 hours regeneration at 80 C, then 16 hours of adsorption drying, three cycles, 3.0 days), the operating envelope including the insolation failure floor of 3.15 kWh/m2/day and the schedule limit of 4.20 kWh/m2/day, tolerances, failure modes, and maintenance including gel regeneration and replacement. Every performance number comes from the source paper; derived build quantities are computed in the accompanying compute.py and recorded in results.json. No dryer built to this blueprint has been tested.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Food Drying and Modeling
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