Sustainable Solar Drying of Brewer’s Spent Grains: A Comparison with Conventional Electric Convective Drying

Spent grains from microbreweries are mostly formed by malting barley (or malt) and suitable for a further valorization process. Transforming spent waste to raw materials, instance, in the production of nontraditional flour, requires previous drying A natural convection solar dryer (NCSD) was evaluated as an alternative conventional electric convective (CECD) dehydration process local microbrewers’ grains. Two types brewer’s (BSG; Golden ale Red ale) were dried with both systems, sustainability indices, specific energy consumption (eC), CO2 emissions calculated used assess environmental advantages disadvantages NCSD. Then, models (empirical, neural networks, computational fluid dynamics) simulate processes under different conditions. The times 30–85 min (depending on temperature, 363.15 K 333.15 K) 345–430 starting daytime hour at which began) CECD NCSD, respectively. However, eC 1.68–1.88 · 10?3 (kW h)/kg 294.80–410.73 kg/(kW h) temperatures. Using indicators null, considering this aspect benefit.