Fabrication and Experimental Study of New Zero Energy Cooling Chamber with a Solar-Driven Adsorption Refrigerator

  Shubham Damodhar Bokade,  Akshay Prakash Varghe,  Aakesh Anandrao Ghumde

A New Zero Energy Cool Chamber (ZECC) consisting of two cooling systems, a solar-driven adsorption refrigerator and an evaporative cooling system, was developed and then evaluated as low-cost and eco-friendly cooling storage for storing fruit with moderate respiration rates. The solar-driven adsorption refrigerator, consisting of a solar collector containing activated carbon as an adsorbent, a condenser and an evaporator, cools water based by evaporating methanol and adsorbing it on activated carbon, and then makes ice. The methanol adsorbed on the activated carbon is desorbed by applying solar heat. The ice is then used to cool the storage space, which can be done for a long time without the need for electricity. The evaporative cooling system also cools the storage space by evaporating water from the wet walls containing wet filler. The combined use of two cooling systems reduced the average inside temperature of the new ZECC to 12.070C compared with an average outside temperature of 31.50C and extended the shelf life of tomatoes from 7 to 16 days. These results suggest that the new ZECC proposed here is low cost and energy-saving and is useful for storing fruit and vegetables in areas where electricity is unavailable.

Keywords- Solar-driven Adsorption Refrigerator, Evaporative Cooling, Storage, Eco-friendly.

Unique Identification Number - IJEDR1704004
Page Number(s) - 24-31
Pubished in - Volume 5 | Issue 4 | October 2017
DOI (Digital Object Identifier) -    http://doi.one/10.8/ijedr.17083
Publisher - IJEDR (ISSN - 2321-9939)

  Shubham Damodhar Bokade,  Akshay Prakash Varghe,  Aakesh Anandrao Ghumde,   "Fabrication and Experimental Study of New Zero Energy Cooling Chamber with a Solar-Driven Adsorption Refrigerator", International Journal of Engineering Development and Research (IJEDR), ISSN:2321-9939, Volume.5, Issue 4, pp.24-31, October 2017, Available at :http://www.ijedr.org/papers/IJEDR1704004.pdf