Vol. 11, Special Issue 11 (2022)

Author(s):
Diwakar Tiwari, Dr. Mukesh Shriwastava, Neha Pachlasiya and Charu Bhagat

Abstract:
India is to be the home of turmeric. It accounts for 80 percent of the world output and 60 percent of world exports. At the time of harvesting, turmeric like all other agricultural commodities, invariably contains high moisture that must be brought down to the desired level at which attack of micro-organisms would be minimized. Post harvest processing of turmeric, generally practiced at rural level, consists of two important processes i.e. curing and drying. At rural level rhizomes are dried by spreading on the floor for open sun drying. Sun drying offers a cheap method of drying but often results in inferior quality of products due to its dependence on weather conditions and vulnerability to the attack of dust, dirt, rains, insects, pests and micro-organism. Farmers often dry harvested turmeric rhizomes to final moisture content in the range of 15-35%, depending upon the weather conditions. Uneven and non uniform drying promotes microbes, especially fungus, to start growth immediately. As a solution to the mentioned issues, a project was planned for developing a tray dryer for drying turmeric rhizomes by electrical energy. The dryer was successfully designed and fabricated with final dimensions of drying chamber - 102 × 53 × 57 cm, drying trays - 100 × 50 × 5 cm with 10 mm perforations and drying chamber stand - 102 × 53 × 70 cm.