Impact Analysis of Solar Heater Box with Linear Actuator on Characteristics of Chickpea Seeds

Abstract

Food security is one of the major concerns of humankind in the present era and a lot of work has been done to ensure the availability of food to the growing population. Post-harvest technology is one of the key components to store the seeds for long duration for consumption as food or grow as seed. The disinfection of seeds during storage from insect pests is one of the major problems that need to be addressed. In this study, an efficient solar box is designed which is operated through renewable solar energy. For this purpose, the solar heater box was prepared of an acrylic sheet (2mm thickness), Lasani sheet (2mm thickness) and hardboard sheet (12mm thickness) which were an octagon in shape with 135oC at the base. A 12v linear actuator was installed in the solar box along with hardwood log (saw tooth-like comb) to equally distribute the heat in the seed place for experiment. The highest thermal performance was generated by an acrylic solar heater box 87.40 ℃ compared to hardboard and Lasani box. However, the material used for assembling acrylic boxes was too costly. A hardboard box was too heavy and the temperature was generated 69.69℃ which was relatively significant to the temperature recorded in Lasani solar heater box (70.19℃) at after 6 hour of an observation. Concerning the financial aspect, the price of each of the three solar heater boxes was estimated based on the cost of the materials used to construct the boxes and the additional labour costs, with the assistance of carpenters during assembly. These costs show how much cheaper the Lasani box is compared to the other prototypes.  The temperature at a depth of 6 cm was noted 67.42℃ among Chickpea seeds, whereas the temperature recorded within seeds was 69.61℃. Furthermore, the experiment conducted in RCBD revealed that germination percentage of seeds at a depth of 6cm was observed to be 97% after treatment. The overall conclusion of the study is that the solar box with linear actuator is more efficient as compared to traditional drying method.