Effect of the surface area of evaporator coil on energy consumption, refrigerated storage environment and weight loss of fruit.
Yun H.S., Lee W.O., Chung H., Lee H.D.
5th International Postharvest Symposium . Volume of Abstract . Verona, Italy 6-11 June 2004, p.71
2004
บทคัดย่อ
Effect of the surface area of evaporator coil on energy consumption, refrigerated storage environment and weight loss of fruit.
Refrigerated storage is one of the major techniques for retention of quality.For long term storage, the most significant economic parameters are product weight loss and cold room climate, which affects quality as well as the quantity of saleable produce and the energy consumption in running the plant.For the most of the refrigerated store, direct expansion evaporator is used for cooling room.In this case, frost accumulation on the surface of coil is the cause of moisture decrease in cooling room and fruit moisture loss.In addition, because of frost accumulation on the coil surface tends to insulate the coil and reduce the refrigeration capacity, the frost must be removed periodically by raising the surface temperature of coil above the freezing point of water.This is the cause of an increase of electricity consumption and room temperature variation.However, most of the information available is on the effect of relative humidity on fruit moisture or weight and quality changes during storage.Little information is available on surface area of evaporator coil effects on energy consumption, storage environment and weight loss of fruit.In this study, the amount of frost accumulated on surface of evaporator coil, variation of temperature and relative humidity in cold room, temperature difference between room air and discharge air from the evaporator coil, electricity consumption, and weight loss of fruit were monitored according to the surface area of evaporator coil.From the experimental results, it was possible to design an evaporator that little frost was accumulated on the surface of coil and high humidity level is maintained in cold room.When we used newly designed evaporator to commercial cold room, it was possible to reduce 6.1% weight loss of pears and 54% electricity consumption after 4-month storage.