Cardamom and spice farmers in Adimali, Kerala face significant challenges with inefficient and costly drying methods. Traditional firewood dryers require up to 12 hours of continuous overnight labor, a burden that falls mainly on women. Electric dryers are expensive, and the area’s unreliable electricity grid forces drying centers to frequently shut down or rely on costly diesel generators.
IEEE VJCET Student Branch, in partnership with Captains Social Foundation, is developing SPICECYCLE, a solar-powered heat pump dryer with a custom-built sand battery for thermal storage. Solar panels generate electricity during the day to power a heat pump, which stores heat in an insulated sand battery. At night, that stored heat is automatically transferred to the drying chamber, with a microcontroller-regulated temperature profile that rises from 44°C to 57°C over 12 hours, which is the optimal range for high-quality cardamom drying.
This project was made possible by $10,000 in funding from the Industry Applications Society (IAS) an EPICS in IEEE partner.