Design and construction of an evaporative cooler for tomatoes.

Abstract

An electrically powered evaporative cooling system was designed and constructed to increase the shelf life of the stores vegetables. The evaporative cooler was tested and evaluated using tomatoes. The equipment operates on the principle of evaporative cooling and increasing the relative humidity in the preservation tin.

The cooling system was made of aluminum foil wrapped around a plastic tin while the inside was empty to accomodate tomatoes. Power was switched on and the temperature changes measured measured for different values of voltage (V). The weight loss of tomatoes was analyzed and determined using a weighing scale. The cooling efficiency determined, and the temperature in tomatoes as dropped slowly when power(voltage) was increased. The testing of the evaporative cooling system shows that the tomatoes can be stored for an average of five days with negligible changes in weight, colour, firmness and rotting as compared to ambient condition which started rotting after three(3) days. Hence it is on this note that farmers, house holders, and tomato processing factories should adopt the use of such cooling system for the storing of fresh tomatoes as this increases the shelf life of tomatoes.