Proceedings of the 6 th World Congress on Mechanical, Chemical, and Material Engineering (MCM'20) Prague, Czech Republic Virtual Conference – August, 2020 Paper No. ICMIE 102 DOI: 10.11159/icmie20.102 ICMIE 102-1 Assess the use of Solar Dryer with Photonic Solar Reflectors and PCMs in Farming Products in the Andean Region Estefanía Orquera 1 , Álvaro Aguinaga 2 , Carlos Ávila 3 , Víctor Hidalgo 4 1,2,3,4 Department of Mechanical Engineering/ Escuela Politécnica Nacional Ladrón de Guevara E11-253, Quito, Ecuador estefania.orquera@epn.edu; alvaro.aguinaga@epn.edu.ec, carlos.avila@epn.edu.ec, victor.hidalgo@epn.edu.ec Abstract – Dehydration food products is seen as an alternative to preserve them in quality and extend their period of live and consumption, this procedure usually happens using non-renewables resources, or in the open air, which, in some cases, could contaminate the final product. An alternative is the use of solar energy for solar dyers to dehydrate agricultural products. Since Ecuador has an excellent radiant resource and an economical dependence of Agriculture activities, it is suggested to assess the performance of a solar dryer, that consider, as an improvement the use of Integrated Photonic Solar Reflectors and thermal energy storage with Phase Change Materials (PCMs) in the Province of Pichincha, in the Andean Region, applied to farming products harvesting by a local community in Cayambe. For this evaluation, in the begging will be analysed food products such as Maize and Cedron leaves, and it will be evaluated the reduction of their moisture content. The use of thermal energy storage (PCMs) will allow to show that this incorporation increase the efficiency of the solar energy system, and the addition of Integrated Photonic Solar Reflectors to the panels, also, it will be possible to suggest improvements in the design of the chosen solar dryer taken as reference for the purposes of this research. Keywords: Solar Dryer, Integrated Photonic Solar Reflectors, PCM, Thermal Energy Storage, Dehydration, Moisture Content, Irradiation 1. Introduction Agriculture in Ecuador is an essential economic activity, which is performed mostly by families in rural areas that economically depend on their farming production. Nevertheless, it is known that around 6% of global food losses, in the post harvesting process and due to the ripening of organic products, happen in Latin America and in the Caribbean Region and, in the following years this production will be also affected by climatic events such as: drought seasons, stronger winters, extreme temperature changes, which will increase social, economic, and development inequalities. [1] [2] [3] To reduce these losses and to add value to agricultural products, emerges the idea of dehydrated these items, i.e. drying to preserve them, and for this purpose it is required amounts of energy which could be obtained by non- renewable and renewable energy sources. In the first case, fossil fuels and carbon sources have environmental constraints due to the CO 2 emissions, costs and the ecological impacts of their use; on the other hand, and for this project, it is suggested the employment of solar energy for the dryer, which is a renewable source of energy, it is abundant, and environmental friendly with less impact in the planet. [4] Solar dryers rely on solar radiation, available in daily hours and in sunny seasons conditions, and their limitation appears during night hours, cloudy or winter seasons, therefore, and for this survey, it is proposed the use of solar dryers, that counts with thermal energy storage such as Phase Change Materials (PCMs) that gathers energy and release it when a change of state occurs (liquid-solid and solid- liquid), and with these elements incorporated in the dryer system, it is expected an increase in the total thermal efficiency. [5] [6] Several surveys around the world have been conducted about solar dryer for food products, such as the one performed by Bal et al. “Solar dryers with thermal energy storage for agricultural food”, “Solar dryer with PCM as Energy storage medium (Review)”, however, there is no one conducted in Ecuador in the Andean Region where the solar resource is approx. 5.275 kWh/m2/day. [7] [8] [9] In this research it is suggested to assess the employment of solar dryer with Integrated Photonic Solar Reflectors and PCMs to dry farming products in the Andean Region. There were chosen Maize (Corn), and Cedron leaves (Aloysia citriodora), the first is considered an essential nourishment in Ecuador, and the Cedron leaves as a medicinal herb has many benefits for the organism and the nervous system, and it is also a South American product. Maize and