Research Article
Design and Experimental Test on Solar Powered Evaporative Cooling to Store Perishable Agricultural Products
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-030-80618-7_12, author={Bimrew Tamrat and Lijalem Ayele and Raja Kathiravan}, title={Design and Experimental Test on Solar Powered Evaporative Cooling to Store Perishable Agricultural Products}, proceedings={Advances of Science and Technology. 8th EAI International Conference, ICAST 2020, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, October 2-4, 2020, Proceedings, Part II}, proceedings_a={ICAST PART 2}, year={2021}, month={7}, keywords={Solar powered evaporative cooling systems Perishable products Preservation Relative humidity Vegetables}, doi={10.1007/978-3-030-80618-7_12} }- Bimrew Tamrat
Lijalem Ayele
Raja Kathiravan
Year: 2021
Design and Experimental Test on Solar Powered Evaporative Cooling to Store Perishable Agricultural Products
ICAST PART 2
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-80618-7_12
Abstract
This paper is dealt with the design and experimental test on solar powered evaporative cooling system which is maintaining inside temperature lower than ambient temperature with higher level of relative humidity for the storage of fresh Agricultural products such as tomato, carrot and green chili (pepper). The experimental setup is a rectangular shaped storage space made of galvanized steel for external cover, aluminum for internal cover insulated with fiber glass. Axial fan supplies 0.78 m3/s air at a speed of 0.93 m/s to wet pad and for recycling of water through copper tube, an axial pump having flow rate of 0.054 kg/s is used to remove the heat from the commodities. The results reveal that the shelf life of the vegetables is increased 12 days when compared with ambient conditions. The temperature range of the cooling cabinet is found 16.2 to 22.1 °C during the hottest time of the day and the ambient temperature varied from 22.6 to 29.8 °C. The relative humidity is found between 75 and 90% when the outside condition is recorded between 66 and 80%. The maximum weight loss found after the sixth day for carrot, tomato and pepper are 8, 10 and 16% in cabinet conditions and 50.6, 38 and 50% in ambient conditions respectively. The commodity decay is found in an ambient condition is faster compared with the commodity stored in the present cooling system. Evaporative cooling efficiency is found 82%.
