Analysis of Temperature and Humidity Characteristics of Air-Cooled Insect-Rearing Equipment Using Thermoelectric Elements

Abstract

Insects are nutritious owing to their high protein content, and are excellent in creating diverse amino acids and fatty acids. As insects are edible and can be used as feed and medicine, they have been industrialized in diverse fields. To enable the efficient growth of insects, thereby making progress in the insect industry, an air-cooled insect-rearing equipment that can control the growth environments such as temperature, humidity and photoperiod, as well as conduct remote monitoring and control was designed and manufactured. In this research, to control the temperature and humidity, two thermoelectric elements and humidifying modules were used. The thermoelectric elements and humidifying modules were set up such that the drive power can be variably-controlled based on the pulsed width modulation signal by the microcontroller (MCU). The manufactured insect-rearing system was used to confirm the temperature and humidity characteristics. The results show that the internal temperature and humidity vary depending on the growth conditions set through the insect-rearing equipment, and that it is possible to stably maintain the internal temperature and humidity.