A heat pump drier is designed and fabricated to investigate its performance for copra drying. The experiments are carried out at 40 °C drying air temperature with a velocity of 1.5 m/s. The results showed that moisture content (wet basis) of the coconut is reduced from 52.6 to 8.5 per cent in 48 h. The average coefficient of performance of the heat pump is estimated to be about 3.5. The specific moisture extraction rate is calculated to be about 0.85 kg/kW-h. The copra obtained is graded as 92.7 per cent milling copra grade 1 (MCG1) and 7.3 per cent MCG2 according to Bureau of Indian standards (BIS: 6220–1971).
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