A comprehensive review of solar dryers incorporated with phase change materials for enhanced drying efficiency

Shifting from fossil oil-generated electrical power to green energy has been a topic of greatest interest due to its huge negative impact on the environment and human well-being. Any step taken toward reducing pollution fingerprints would have a great contribution to saving the environment. Using solar energy in the food industry sector and precisely crop drying is one step toward a clean environment. Several solar drying processes use various strategies to produce dry crops. Solar dryers incorporated with phase change materials (PCMs) are gaining importance as they are characterized by higher efficiencies and shorter time for crop drying. This comprehensive review analyses and reports on the influence of PCMs usage on the performance of solar dryers. The performance of different solar dryers incorporated with PCM in terms of drying rate, drying time, drying temperature, relative humidity, and thermal efficiency is reviewed and discussed. The most relevant findings of the evaluated publications were presented to assist researchers in comprehending the advances of solar dryers using PCMs.