Sharing with Dan Tri reporter, Mr. Phan Van Hiep said that in 2017, he boldly accepted the research topic of applying solar energy to dry seafood and agricultural products from the Department of Science and Technology of Ho Chi Minh City.
From there, the journey from a teacher standing on the podium to a pioneer in making a universal dryer using solar energy to solve the problem of processing and upgrading Vietnamese agricultural products began.
Up to now, the dryer has reached farmers across the country.
"Scientific research topics are not just on paper, the products need to be applied in practice. Therefore, during the research process, I went to each locality, drying all kinds of agricultural products for farmers," said Mr. Hiep.
After many experiments, by 2022, his project of drying agricultural products using solar energy was successful and was selected for incubation at the high-tech business incubator of Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park (SHTP-IC).
According to the 47-year-old teacher, drying agricultural products is a long-standing processing process with many different technologies. For more than 30 years, the solar drying model using the greenhouse effect has been used to solve the cost problem.
However, the disadvantage is that the greenhouse dryer is inefficient, the drying temperature cannot be controlled, it cannot dry multiple drying layers and is dependent on the weather.
Teacher Phan Van Hiep invented a universal dryer to help farmers process and preserve agricultural products better.
"If the sun is weak or it rains, it will not be able to dry. The greenhouse dryer heats very well from the sun in still air conditions, but when it comes to drying for moving air, the temperature will drop quickly. In addition, this type cannot dry large quantities," said Mr. Hiep.
On that basis, he did not use the greenhouse effect but invented a solar heat collector called "solar heat trap".
This is the device with the best solar heat collection efficiency on the market today with a small heat trapping area but providing enough heat to dry large output.
He gave an example: With the smallest dryer, the heat trap area is approximately 2m2 but provides enough heat to dry 100kg of product. With the larger dryer for drying rice paper and noodles currently set up in the Mekong Delta, the heat trap area is about 30m2 but can dry up to a ton of product.
The drying system is integrated with ultraviolet C (UVC) lamps to oxidize the air to create ozone gas to eliminate microorganisms and molds, ensuring food hygiene and safety and helping to preserve agricultural products longer.
Not stopping there, realizing that the uniformity of the product would not be achieved if the horizontal tray was dried statically, Mr. Hiep researched and came up with a dynamic drying solution, with the tray rotating evenly around a vertical axis. From there, every position on the tray exposed to wind and heat should produce almost absolutely uniform products and shorten the drying time.
In addition, the dryer's inlet dehumidification system filters dust and water from the outside air before introducing a very dry stream of air into the chamber.
According to the teacher, this solution helps lower the drying temperature so that the product retains nutrients, color and shape similar to freeze-drying technology.
In addition, the drying system is integrated with ultraviolet C (UVC) lamps to oxidize the air to create ozone gas to eliminate microorganisms and mold, ensuring food hygiene and safety and helping to preserve agricultural products longer.
ITS machine dries a variety of agricultural products, medicinal herbs, seafood, etc.
"For example, dried sweet potatoes, dried lemons, etc. dried with other technologies (electric drying, cold drying, freeze drying, etc.) after 3 months, even though frozen, will still turn black and be re-infected with mold, but when dried with an ITS dryer, they can be stored for up to 12 months without turning black or being re-infected with mold," Mr. Hiep cited.
In the near future, in addition to teaching and scientific research, he revealed that he will conquer the Central Highlands market with a rotary drum solar dryer because this place has a variety of medicinal herbs and agricultural products with very large output.
Ha Lam
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