Low-cost automation for artificial drying of cocoa beans: A case study in the Amazon

Abstract

The objective of this study was to develop a low-cost automated drying system and test its effectiveness in the drying process of cocoa beans through a case study. Thus, an electronic system was designed, composed of an Esp8266-12E microcontroller, which had Internet connection, humidity and temperature sensors, and a relay. A computer software system was used, which was responsible for storing the collected data. We developed an application called Data Silo for smartphones, and a case study was conducted. Data Silo was able to draw data from the sensors and trigger the centrifugal fan in real time. The captured and stored data exhibited consistency in the function of the sensors during the drying process. The case study attested to the reliability of the drying process and indicated that higher air speeds during drying at 40 °C shortened the drying time and altered the drying kinetics in the proposed system. Therefore, it was concluded that the automatic drying system was effective for drying cocoa beans. The Data Silo software, sketch, and user guide are available at GitHub https://github.com/Wagnereng/A-low-cost-automatization-for-cocoa-drying.

KEYWORDS:

• Low-cost automation
• drying of cocoa
• Esp8266-12E
• development
• programing

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).