A prototype hybrid Photovoltaic Thermal (PV – T) solar dryer aided with Evacuated Tube Collector (ETC) is presented for drying of cassava slices under the meteorological conditions of Thanjavur, Tamilnadu, India. Further the morphological, structural and physical properties of thin layer drying kinetics are studied and compared with natural sun drying. The designed dryer reduces the moisture content of cassava from 91.5% (wb) to 10.67% (wb) which is considered to be a safe level for storage in 8 h. There is a wide scope to save the conventional fuel by adopting the designed solar dryer as the air temperature inside the chamber rise is 30–40 °C than the ambient temperature. Non – linear regression analysis is performed to find out the drying kinetics of cassava using IBM SPSS 23 statistical package. Two - term model is proved to be the most suitable model for predicting thin-layer drying behaviour of cassava slices with R² = 0.982, χ² = 0.017553 for hybrid dryer and R² = 0.998, χ² = 0.001247 for open sun drying. XRD results exhibit ‘A’ type crystalline pattern that indicates semi–crystalline nature of cassava for both hybrid and sun dried cassava. Structural, morphological and proximate composition analysis reveals that the quality of hybrid dried cassava is better in terms of physical and chemical compositions than sun dried cassava. The proposed hybrid dryer is capable of producing high standard dried products for exporting and can make a good profit.

提出了一个混合式光伏热（PV – T）太阳能干燥机的原型，该干燥机配有真空管集热器（ETC），用于在印度泰米尔纳德邦坦贾武尔的气象条件下干燥木薯片。进一步研究了薄层干燥动力学的形态，结构和物理性质，并将其与自然阳光干燥进行了比较。设计的干燥机将木薯的水分含量从91.5％（wb）降低到10.67％（wb），这被认为是8小时内的安全储存水平。通过采用设计的太阳能干燥机，可以节省传统燃料，因为室内的空气温度比环境温度高30–40°C。使用IBM SPSS 23统计软件包进行了非线性回归分析，以找出木薯的干燥动力学。²  = 0.982，χ ²  = 0.017553用于混合干燥器和R ²  = 0.998，χ ²  = 0.001247开放晒。XRD结果显示出“ A”型结晶模式，表明木薯的杂种和晒干木薯均具有半结晶性质。结构，形态和邻近成分分析表明，就物理和化学成分而言，杂交干木薯的质量比晒干木薯的质量更好。所提出的混合干燥机能够生产高标准的干燥产品以供出口，并能获得可观的利润。