Abstract:
On farm, low cost zero energy cool chamber with small capacity
was constructed at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Eastern
University, Sri Lanka by using locally available materials The
doubled wailed chamber constructed of bricks, sand and skaw
is kept soaked with water. The evaporative cooling effect reduced
ihe inside temperature by as much as 13-150 C and kept
"he
relative humidity above 90% during peak hot season lt was
{ound that this chamber could a-Lso maintain temperature at 8
12oC lower than the ambient temperature with relative hum idity
of around 90% in normal days Freshly harvested lemon and
tomato fruits were used for evaluating their storage performance
in this chamber The cool chamber was found to increase the
shelf life of lemons and tomatoes and reduced the physiological
loss in weight appreciably as compared to loom tempelherr
Higher firmness due to delay in opening and delay in increase
of total soluble solids, increasing the total sugars, decrease in
acidity and Less rotting of fruit was observed leading io recovery
of higher percent marketable fruits Lemon and tomato fruits
could be stored in cool chamber up lo 16 and 12 days as against
7 and 4 days at room temperature(32oC) respectively
