ABSTRACT
Open-air sun drying has been used since time immemorial to dry plants, seeds, fruits, meat, sh, wood, and other agricultural or forest products as a means of preservation. However, for large-scale production the limitations of openair drying are well known. Among these are high labor costs, large area requirement, lack of ability to control the drying process, possible degradation due to biochemical or microbiological reactions, insect infestation, and so on. In order to benet from the free and renewable energy source provided by the sun several attempts have been made in recent years to develop solar drying mainly for preserving agricultural and forest products.
