Design, fabrication, and performance assessment of a novel biomass gasification-powered all-season climate control unit for perishables

Abstract

Availability of storage and processing facilities that work off-the-grid is crucial to agrarian economies for meeting sustainable development goals. We report a novel biomass-gasification-powered climate control unit (CCU) with independently controlled temperature and humidity, which enables the system to maintain a wide range of climatic conditions for storage, processing and farming of perishables. The developed all-season CCU has a temperature control subsystem driven by a novel biomass gasification-based hot water generator (heating capacity – 22 kW), which also powers an adsorption refrigerator (cooling capacity – 11 kW). The heat content of the hot flue gas (≈250°C) from the exhaust of gasification-based hot water generator is recovered using flue gas-to-air heat exchanger and utilized to regenerate (3.6 kW) the desiccant wheel thus enabling an off-the-grid humidity control. Auxiliary components such as pumps, blowers, control panels, and valves are operated in an off-the-grid manner using solar photovoltaic panels (≈ 1.5 kWe) backed by storage batteries. An algorithm is devised to demonstrate autonomous and independent control of temperature and relative humidity over a wide range of psychrometric conditions (0–50 °C and 15–90 % RH). We also present the cost analysis and identify the immediate challenges facing the developed system. The waste-to-energy concept of high lignin-based biomass such as forest wood, agricultural residue demonstrated herein lays the foundation for a proper biomass utilization besides empowering farmers with a much-needed technology towards sustainable growth.