| Autor: |
Ndukwu, Macmanus Chinenye, Simo-Tagne, Merlin, Inemesit, Ekop, Akpan, Godwin Edem, Ibeh, Mathew Imagwuike, Igbojionu, Donatus O., Tagne Tagne, Ablain |
| Zdroj: |
Biomass Conversion & Biorefinery; Jul2024, Vol. 14 Issue 14, p16049-16058, 10p |
| Abstrakt: |
Fruits are highly perishable due to high respiration rate after harvest. This always leads to losses after harvest resulting in farmers not getting good value for their products. The high cost of the conventional refrigerator and the adverse effect on the stored fruits have made evaporative cooling technology for fruit preservation very attractive. The challenge is making it more affordable and effective to farmers using locally sourced materials to store different kinds of fruits. Therefore, the objective of this research is to evaluate the influence of locally source agro-biomass wetting material on the dynamics of the respiratory heat load of orange stored in a direct evaporative cooler. For this reason, a custom stand-alone direct evaporative cooler designed for the storage of fruits and vegetables was used to store oranges with Jute fibre, palm fruit mesocarp fibre and wood charcoal as agro-biomass humidifiers at 3 to 4.5 m/s air velocity. The evolution of the respiratory heat and heat transfer rate varied with surrounding temperature and air velocity, and the three biomass-wetting materials showed a good response in lowering the ambient air temperature. Orange fruit stored in the DEC showed a very low respiratory heat load of 0.011 to 0.017 W/kg (11 to 17 mW/kg) and a heat transfer load of 0.614 to 0.963 W for the three biomass wetting materials investigated. Comparatively palm fruit mesocarp produced the lowest evaporative cooler temperature, respiratory heat generation and heat transfer rate. The respiratory heat generated by the orange stored in DEC with palm fruit mesocarp fibres was found to be 1.4% and 0.7% lower than jute fibre and wood charcoal respectively at an air speed of 4.5 m/s, whereas it was 11.63% and 17.05% lower at 4 m/s for the two materials. Similarly, at 3 m/s the values were lower by 9.7% and 14.93% for jute fibre and wood charcoal, respectively. Correspondingly, the heat transfer rate for palm fruit mesocarp was lower by 5.4% and 8.32% at 4.5 m/s, 10.24 and 14.17% at 4 m/s and 12.54 and 21.99% at 3 m/s for jute fibre and wood charcoal, respectively. A multi-regression fitting of respiratory heat generation with the cooler temperature surface temperature and air velocity showed a linear relationship with R2 values of 0.774 to 0.999 for the three biomass wetting materials explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Databáze: |
Complementary Index |
| Externí odkaz: |
|
Full text from SpringerLink