Temperature Characteristics Investigation of Chilled Refrigerator with Humidifier

Post-harvest cold chain of horticulture product in tropical country such as is very urgent to keep the product quality. In this country, the environment temperature and humidity are relatively high, so that the horticultural products are deterioration very fast. On the other hand, this condition can be used naturally for increase the room humidity. This study is aimed to investigate the medium temperature refrigerator performance when apply humidifier to keep the humidity of the system. This research was carried out by experimental investigation. The rig has been built with complete with measurement and instrumentation in order to get a precision control of temperature and humidity. The results show that the system reach good enough of COP which approximately 3.5. However the humidifier contributed a cooling load that can affect of 1 - 1.5 °C temperature increasing. Further studies will be examined optimisation humidifier system with low electricity consumption and eco operation condition with the best combination temperature and humidity to keep the products still has good quality under long time storage.