Cutting Landing-Site Fish Spoilage Without Ice: A Solar-Assisted Dryer and Raised-Rack Design Priced per Kilogram of Catch Saved
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: At tropical landing sites without ice or grid power, part of each day's catch spoils before it can be sold fresh or dried. This paper designs a combined raised-rack and solar-assisted enclosed dryer for a 100 kg wet daily batch (SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED; nothing has been built or used at a landing site) and tests it in simulation against open-ground drying under identical weather using a first-order thin-layer drying model run as a race against a Q10-style spoilage integral. At the 10 mm design thickness the dryer reaches the 0.20 kg/kg dry-basis target in 13.1 h (hot-dry sunny) to 33.9 h (cool-humid overcast), saving every batch in all four weather cases, while open drying fails on both humid cases because its equilibrium moisture (0.198-0.245 kg/kg) sits at or above target. Across an illustrative 120-day season the saved fraction rises from 0.75 to 1.00, an additional 3,000 kg, at $0.051 per additional kilogram saved on a $608 materials cost. The design wins only for fish split to 15 mm or thinner on sunny days and 10 mm or thinner on cloudy days; at 20 mm neither method saves the batch on any day tested.
Author: Aldred, William Alexander
Language: English
Topic: Food Drying and Modeling
Subfield: Food Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225743181
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