Study on Zero Energy Evaporative Cooling Chamber for Agricultural Products Storage

Post-harvest agricultural products are highly perishable due to containing higher moisture contents. Most of agricultural product need special storage like relatively low temperature and higher relative humidity to store for some time duration. In this regard, low cost Zero-energy cool chamber (ZEC) is constructed through locally available material for short-term storage of products. Thermodynamic evaluation of ZEC is mainly investigated by measuring its temperature and relative humidity in comparison with Outside/Ambient (OS) and Room (RM) conditions and its performance is based on evaporation rate that take place through medium. The cooling efficiency of ZEC is then determined under varying ambient conditions. The average temperature and relative humidity difference measured between ZEC and OS about 9°C and 45% respectively. Different analyses are performed including the comparison of physiological weight loss (PWL) and visual appearance (VA) for stored tomatoes at different three environmental conditions such as outside (OS), room (RM) conditions and zero energy cool chamber (ZEC). These analyses are performed on 1^st, 4^th, 8^th, 12^th, 16^th, 20^th, 24^th, 28^th, 32^nd, 36^th and 40^th days of storage.