Experimental study of solar drying of Tunisian phosphate : in open sun, under greenhouse and by a parabolic concentrator

Abstract EN

This work is part of operating a parabolic concentrator for drying the phosphate.

This study is to analyzing the drying of Tunisian phosphate by three separate solar processes.

Two experimental devices have been implemented.

Three drying kinetics were set up by a parabolic concentrator, under greenhouse and in open sun, respectively.

Nine thin-layer drying models were fitted to the experimental data to select a suitable drying equation.

The Midilli model was found to best describe the drying behavior of phosphate for open sun, parabolic concentrator and greenhouse drying.

These tests show that the drying by the parabolic concentrator gives results whose perspectives are satisfactory compared with the drying in the open sun or under greenhouses.