Performance Evaluation of Absorbent Materials in Evaporative Cooling System for the Storage of Fruits and Vegetables

Abstract

An experimental storage based on the principle of evaporative cooling was designed to evaluate the performance of three natural absorbent fiber materials to be used as cooling pads. The absorbent materials were jute, hessian and cotton waste. The performance criteria included cooling efficiency, material performance and total amount of heat load removed from the evaporative cooler. The results showed that under the no-load condition, the average cooling efficiency was highest for jute at 86.2%, compared to 76.3% for cotton waste and 61.7% for hessian fiber. Materials performance tests results showed that the highest resistance to mold formation was exhibited by hessian followed by cotton waste, while the jute fiber had very poor performance. The heat load determination also showed that products stored in the cooler with jute as water absorbent produced the least heat of respiration, followed by cotton waste and hessian in that order. The total results indicated that jute had the overall advantage over the other materials. However, if the cotton waste surface could be modified to offer larger surface required for evaporation, it would be the best alternative because the jute surface is prone to mold formation.