Infrared Convective Drying of Ginger Slices

Tray dryers are very commonly used in food processing industries. In tray dryers or compartment dryers, the material, which may be lumpy solid or a pasty solid is spread uniformly on metal tray to a depth of 10 to 100mm. There are several drawbacks in the traditional drying method, such as it is time consuming operation, qualitative loss in food is very high and sometimes proper drying of food material may not be possible in this drying method and reduction of moisture content to a certain safe limit becomes a difficult job. The major drawbacks of convection dryer are higher drying time, uneven drying and comparatively low capacity. Moreover, the increasing rate of fuel consumption in agriculture has made it necessary, not only to save energy by intensifying the drying process, improving design etc. but also using different techniques for drying process to reduce drying time and increase product quality. The infrared assisted drying can be a solution to all these problems.