Design of thermal storage using phase change material (PCM) for agro products preservation

Abstract

Storage and preservation of agro products are receiving significance to reduce the wastage of agricultural commodities and demand of low cost and less energy intensive sustainable methods. An efficient technique is proposed to preserve farm fresh vegetables through Phase Change Materials (PCM), with lesser electrical energy consumption. In this proposed work, atmospheric air is inducted in to chamber where it is cooled by sensible cooling by passing it through PCM. The PCM changes its phase by absorbing latent heat from the outdoor hot air.. The alternate melting and freezing cycles of typical PCM is exploited for cooling the air which is further circulated into cold storage cabinet. In order to achieve the desired cold storage cabinet temperature and humidity, the amount of air circulated and mass of PCM required is estimated through cooling load and heating load calculations. Based on these load estimates, an appropriate size of equipment’s such as fan, storage cabinet, PCM chamber and heat pipes are designed. Further, performance of the cold storage may be improved by enhancing thermal conductivity of PCM and design improvement of cold storage by the various improvements.