Drying of medicinal plants through hybridization of solar Technologies, as a proposal to support food security in Mexico

摘要

For millennia, humans have used hundreds of species of plants to treat diseases, these practices continue to this day. In the traditional knowledge of medicinal plants can be reported many species with important characteristics to alleviate very diverse health problems, mainly in rural areas, where the use of these resources is very high, even comes to replace almost completely scientific medicine. This paper presents the dehydration of the main medicinal plants grown in the Campeche State, Mexico through direct and indirect solar technologies; the experimental results showed that the greenhouse solar dryer with solar heater coupling of evacuated pipes, solar collector of air and photovoltaic pumping, is the most efficient technology of the evaluated one, with average drying times of 315 min and final humidity of 9.6%. A study of colorimetry, analysis of water activity, and drying speed was carried out in order to control the drying process. It is proved that it is possible to use solar energy to dehydrate food as a means of conservation, also obtaining significant energy savings and contributing to the care of the environment.