The main problem with dryers is wasted heat. Most households use condenser and vented dryers.

In both, heat is exhausted outside which is a waste. Our aim is to come up with a design to recover that heat. This will reduce the energy consumption. The air entering into the dryers is at room temperature. The lower the temperature, the higher the energy required to raise the temperature of the air. If the inlet air is at a higher temperature than room, then less energy will be required to raise the temperature to the required one. There are also other issues with the common dryers. These include, the bundling together of clothes and the heat losses through the drum. These also reduce the efficiency of the dryer. When clothes get bundled together, the area that is exposed to the hot air is reduced. To prevent that from happening, we have to modify the shape of the drum so that clothes dont get muddled together. In the following, we have done some calculations: The following are concepts that we came up with together:

Ground source heat pump (GSHP). Ground source heat pump (GSHP). In this concept, ground heat is used to heat the inlet air. The aim of this design is to increase the temperature of the inlet air so that less energy will be used by the heating element. Earths crust maintains a constant temp of 10- 20o C at shallow depths. This heat is available due to the solar energy stored from the Sun that can be extracted.

A GSHP system consists of ground pipe loop, liquid and heat pump. The pipe loop is laid into the ground, horizontally or vertically, water is pumped through the loop and it absorbs the heat that is present in the ground. For our design, we can use a heat exchanger, to heat the air that will go into the dryer.

This concept is ideal where there already is a GSHP installed for under-ground heating. Then, some of the heat can be used for the dryer.

Solar Water heater. In this concept, water is heated using solar energy. Air is heated from water using a heat exchanger. This will result in an increased inlet temperature and thus less energy will be used by the heating

element. The solar heating system consist of solar panels, heat exchanger and water. Solar energy is captured by the solar panels, and is used to heat water. This water is passed through a liquid to air exchanger and air is heated. Now, a solar panel of 500W, can heat up 10 litres of water. This volume of H2O can heat up the air by about 10oC. Now going back to the calculation shown in section 1.5, if the inlet temp is 31C instead of 21C, then the energy required to heat air will be : Q=HA(dT) =

Heat Recycle. In Europe, the most common dryers are condenser and vented dryers. In both of these, heat is exhausted out. In the condenser dryer, a heat exchanger uses extra air from room to condense the vapour to liquid which is collected in a container at the bottom, the warm air is then exhausted out to the room. In the vented dryer, heated vapour is exhausted out through a hose to the outside of the building. Using a heat exchanger, this wasted heat can be recycled and result in lower energy consumption. For this design, the exhaust air can recirculated directly to the drum or mixed with the inlet air to the heat element. To recycle the heat, there are two ways:

1. Using the condenser dryer, connect the heat that is exhausted out directly to the inlet pipe. 2. Using the vented dryer, heat the inlet air with the exhausted vapour via a heat exchanger.

Calculation for the condenser dryer:

Microwave. Microwave is a very useful appliance to heat water in food. Using more power, water can be vaporised. In order to use microwave radiation to dry clothes, it is necessary to know how much energy will be consumed by the magnetron to vaporise the moisture.

Hybrid breeze dryer