FABRICATION AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF COLD STORAGE SYSTEM
ABSTRACTS
A portable cold room storage was developed. The system was tested with different types of perishable crops under different temperatures. The system is made up of two units, one,the evaporating unit that is where the produce was stored; it is made up of steel material with 79mm by 45mm in length and breadth. While the second unit is the trolleys, the system consists of a control switch that is calibrated to suit any type of produce stored in the system. It contain a separate basement which consist of compress or, 1/6 cooling fan 1/6 connected together into the evaporating unit. This system was also constructed with lagging material which consists of A and B formula called polytherine. The ambient temperature was 35Imagewhich have temperature range betweenImage30Image. The electricity power requires running the cold room storage system is 220 to 250v. Hence, the system is effective for the storage of perishables at favourable conditions for every home.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page
Certification
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Abstracts
Table of contents
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Need for cold storage of Agricultural Products 1
1.1 Definition of storage 2
1.2 Flavour and Nutrition value of Agricultural products 2
1.3 Economics Important of cold Storage 3
1.4 Objectives of the Project 4
1.5 The Scope of the Project 4
1.6 Justification of the Project 4
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Development of Cold Room Storage for Fruits and Vegetables 5
2.1 Harvest, Handling and Transport of Fruits and Vegetables 7
2.2.1 Harvesting Principle of Fruits and Vegetables 7
2.2.2 Handling of Fruits and Vegetables 7
2.2.3 Transport of Fruits and Vegetables 8
2.3 Storage Guidelines for Food and Vegetable 8
2.4 Conditions of Cold Storage for Fruits and Vegetables 9
2.5 Indoor Storage of Fruits and Vegetables 12
2.5.1 Temperature Management for Fruits and Vegetable 13
2.5.2 Chilling Injury for Fruits and Vegetables 13
2.5.3 Freezing Injury for Fruits and Vegetables 14
2.5.4 Storage Mix for Fruits and Vegetables 14
2.5.5 Operation and Maintenance for Fruits and Vegetables 15
2.6 Hygiene Procedure for Cold Storage Structures 16
CHAPTER THREE
Material and Method
3.1 Modified area on the cold storage 19
3.2 Description of the Cold Room Storage System. 20
3.3 Designed Consideration 23
3.3.1 Cold Storage system 23
3.3.3 Power Requirement for cold storage system 24
3.3.2 Capacity of the storage system 24
3.3.3 Power Requirement for cold storage system 24
3.4 Design Calculation and Analysis 24
3.4.1 Capacity of the Cooling Chamber 24
3.4.2 Heat transfer Analysis of the System 25
3.5 Materials Selection Consideration 26
3.5.1 Strength 27
3.5.2 Durability 27
3.5.3 Rigidity 27
3.5.4 Thermal Properties 27
3.5.5 Food safety 27
3.5.6 Availability of Materials 28
3.5.7 Gas Selection 28
3.6 Installation procedure and assemble 28
3.6.1 Application of the Installation 28
3.6.2 General Operation 29
3.7 Working Principle of Cold Storage System 30
3.8 Cost Analysis 31
3.8 Cost Analysis 33
3.8.1 Source of Material 33
3.8.2 Sample Preparation 34
3.8.3 Experimental Procedure 34
3.8. Output Parameter 34
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Results 37
4.2 Discussion 39
4.2.1 Discussion on Average Weight and temperature of samples both
in cold storage and at ambient condition 39
4.2.2 Discussion on Physiological weight loss of samples 40
4.2.3 Discussion on temperature against time interval in cold storage and
ambient condition 40
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1 Conclusions 46
5.2 Recommendation 47
References
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Need for Cold Storage of Agricultural Products
The term ‘cold storage ’refers to the storing of agricultural products in a refrigerated atmosphere. This means adequate amount of heat is removed from the storage container or room to help keep the item in often food fresh to delivery, long or short term storage.
Cold storage help prevent spoilage of food and other items meat for consumption, and it can be used in a variety of other setting such as in hospitals, warehouses, and any where else that stores product is in need of preservation .when transporting goods, refrigeration trucks are often used to keep items cold throughout the transportation process.
The room or compartment system in which items are stored for cold storage must be insulated properly for several reasons. The insulation helps maintain a particular temperature within the storage units. it help prevent cool air from escaping from the unit, which would otherwise lead to higher refrigeration costs and energy waste, and it help prevent the temperature outside the storage unit infiltrating into the storage.
In many cases, the temperature within a cold storage unit can be manipulated by adjusting a thermostat, a cooling unit and packing procedures should facilitate easy cooling of products being transported. This method is commonly used to transport perishable foods, flowers meats, and even human organs intended for transport blood is also refrigerated during transport so it can be used later for blood transfusion.
Home refrigerators can be considered cold storage units as well .refrigerators are used to prolong the life of food to be eaten, and they prevent spoilage of perishable food ,in the past ;ice boxes were used instead to keep food cold, but this method was inefficient as regulating the temperature of school structure was often difficult, some types of ship features cold storage units in which temperature can be regulated, in the past fish that were cold were stored in container filled with ice, and the ship[would have to return to port before he ice could melt and allow the fish to spoil
1.2 Definition of Storage
According to ajiboye [2007]define storage as the process of keeping parts of the crop produced during the season of abundant production to ensure its availability during the off production period.
Storage is the act of storing product for future use. And also storage can be defined as the maintenance or retention of retrievable data on a computer or refrigerator and other electronic system. Perhaps the most domestic’s item of food .storage is the fridge or freezer in which a wide variety of foodstuffs are contained and preserved throughout the use of low temperature. Storage is where products are being held safe and in good condition [farlex depart 2003-2012] .
1.3 Flavor and Nutrition Value of Agricultural Products
Freezing is one of the eldest and most widely used methods of food,-preservation of taste texture, and other method. Freezing also retains the quality of agricultural products, overlong storage products like fruits, vegetables and other nutrition properties, the process involves lowering the product temperature generally to 18Image.the physical, state of food materials is changed when energy is removed by cooling below freezing temperature, the extreme cold simply retards the growths o micro-organism and slow down the chemical changes that affect quality or cause food to spoil [fennema et al. 2010]
1.4 Economics Importance of Cold Storage
Cold storage are carefully designed to meet the clients need and purposes from project management to the final construction of the facility, every little details is taken care of until the whole facility is completed. Cold storage is actually know how much of the food we eat is kept fresh before, during and after transit without it, meats, fish, vegetables and fruits would spoil quite quickly.
Cold storage helps to prolong the shelf life of fresh goods they are also effective in reducing the amount of waste and lengthening the time fame per marketing these foods. It is importance to retain adequate circulation of the air within a store and around the produce to ensure efficient cooling.
The main important factor in cold storage is ambient temperature. as a rule the temperature in cold storage is higher than1-2Image,which is the freezing point temperature of stored fruits and vegetables .stored products must not be freezing n the cold storage [cemeroglu and acar 2009]ozkol[2008]reported that there is heat transfer during the process. Tashtoush [2007] investigated process of heat and mass transfer during cold storage of fruits and vegetables and determined a mathematical model for presenting these processes. Equations are solved for different cold storage conditions.
1.5 Aims and Objectives of the Project
The objectives of the project are
i. To construct a cold storage structure for perishable products
ii. To fabricate .a cold storage structure for perishable products
iii. To assemble and install a cold storage structure for perishable products
iv. To develop a portable storage system for perishable products
v. To evaluate the portable storage system using perishable products
1.6 The Scope of The Project
To further improve cold storage system interim of storing perishable products, its efficiency and capacity using local available material and at a affordable cost to the small scale farmers.
1.7 Justification of the Project
i. A portable cold storage system reduce deterioration or spoilage of perishable products, during transportation to where its needed
ii. Portable storage system helps in making of the produced available in every part and corners of the community.
iii. Portable storage system helps the small scale farmers and traders of perishable products in terms of transportation cost.
iv. It ensure good quality of the products
v. The products are not exposed to chilling injury during transportation, marketing, distribution.
Portable storage system helps in maintaining high relative humidity of the produce to the final consumer of the produce.
.