Organic paraffin wax, a phase change material (PCM), was used as the heat-storing material in this study. The novelty of this work is the application of a PCM-packed floor in a conventional solar dryer to reduce the absolute drying time of crops. A PCM-packed solar dryer prototype model was constructed with an extendable drying chamber for easy loading, unloading, tilting, and shuffling the food products. The innovative drying setup was constructed to reduce human efforts and improve the drying in the preservation of food products. Four crops (guava, banana, coconut, ladies’ finger) were chosen for the experimental testing of the fabricated model. The samples were tested using the solar dryer with and without the PCM. The outcomes revealed that PCM usage helped retain the heat longer than the test without PCM. The drying time of all four crops was decreased by about 3-4 hours by installing the PCM, thereby reducing the crop drying time per day. The peak temperature attained by the crops in the presence of PCM had considerably improved, i.e., 7.81 % for guava, 4.55 % for banana, 3.125 % for coconut, and 8.33 % for ladies’ finger. The outcomes revealed that the colour, fragrance, and quality of the solar-dried products were better than the sun-dried products.

在本研究中，有机石蜡是一种相变材料 (PCM)，用作蓄热材料。这项工作的新颖之处在于在传统的太阳能干燥机中应用 PCM 填充地板，以减少作物的绝对干燥时间。PCM 包装的太阳能干燥机原型模型构建有一个可扩展的干燥室，便于装载、卸载、倾斜和混洗食品。创新的干燥装置旨在减少人力并改善食品保存过程中的干燥。选择四种作物（番石榴、香蕉、椰子、女士手指）用于制造模型的实验测试。使用带有和不带有 PCM 的太阳能干燥器测试样品。结果表明，与不使用 PCM 的测试相比，使用 PCM 有助于保持更长时间的热量。通过安装 PCM，所有四种作物的干燥时间都减少了约 3-4 小时，从而减少了每天的作物干燥时间。在 PCM 存在下作物达到的峰值温度显着提高，即番石榴为 7.81%，香蕉为 4.55%，椰子为 3.125%，女士手指为 8.33%。结果表明，晒干产品的颜色、香味和质量均优于晒干产品。