Anjum Munir

University of Agriculture Faisalabad · Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology

The availability of on-farm storage and processing is a critical challenge facing small farmers, which hinders agricultural productivity. Thirty per cent of the food produced globally is lost after harvest, with the proportion being exceptionally high in low- and middle-income countries due to a lack of on-farm handling and storage facilities. Conv...

The energy and exergy based thermal analysis was conducted on a newly developed solar coffee roasting system. The system is comprised of a rotating drum (diameter: 400 mm × length: 400 mm), electric motor with variable frequency drive, cooling tray (diameter: 500 mm × height: 100 mm), fan blower, and coupled with a heating source i.e., Scheffler fi...

Latent heat thermal storage (LHTS) using phase change materials (PCMs) has been successfully adapted in various fields but its use in agriculture has remained very limited mainly involving solar dryers and greenhouses. This study aims to develop a standalone application flexible LHTS system capable of storing and supplying solar thermal energy to v...

Energy and exergy based thermal analysis was conducted for a solar assisted yogurt processing unit capable of performing required heating and cooling processes in a single container. The system consisted of a round-shaped fermentation chamber connected with a hot water storage tank coupled with an evacuated tube collector and a pillow plate at the...

Solar-based milk pasteurization enables decentralized maintenance of milk in remote areas of developing countries like Pakistan. Two innovative and efficient medium temperature range solar techniques; solar concentrator (SC) and evacuated tube collectors (ETC) were employed and compared based on theoretical and experimental analyses for an expedien...

Solar-based milk pasteurization enables decentralized maintenance of milk in remote areas of developing countries like Pakistan. Two innovative and efficient medium temperature range solar techniques; solar concentrator (SC) and evacuated tube collectors (ETC) were employed and compared based on theoretical and experimental analyses for an expedien...

Solar-based milk pasteurization enables decentralized maintenance of milk quality, particularly in remote areas of developing countries. With the introduction of innovative and efficient medium temperature solar technologies, two approaches stand out; solar concentrator (SC) and evacuated tube collectors (ETC) for expedient and efficient milk paste...

Yogurt production at the farm level is important for adding value to milk. In this study, a solar-assisted yogurt processing unit capable of performing the three processes of heating, fermentation, and cooling in a single unit was developed. It consisted of a circular chamber surrounded by a coil for heating by a solar vacuum tube collector and a p...

The novelty of this research work is the exergo-economic analysis (including the cost of exergy destruction and exergy loss) of metal hydride based thermal energy storage system coupled with a solar bakery unit for the screening of metal hydride pairs (Case 1: pure MgH2/LaNi5 & Case 2: V2O5 doped MgH2/LaNi5) for thermochemical energy storage. First...

In this study, for the first time an advanced exergy analysis was applied to a solar hybrid food dehydrator to find out the causes of the inefficacies and to assess the actual improvement potential. The dryer was integrated with an evacuated solar tube collector and gas burner as a heating sources. Drying experiments were performed using bell peppe...

About 70% of the harvested coffee is exported to the industrialized nations for value addition due to lack of processing and logistic facilities in developing coffee producer countries, thus leaving behind a marginal economic return for the growers. This research was conducted to investigate the roasting capacity of an innovatively developed batch-...

Renewable-energy-resource-based microgrids can overcome excessive carbon footprints and increase the overall economic profile of a country. However, the intermittent nature of renew-ables and load variation may cause various control problems which highly affect the power quality (frequency and voltages) of the overall system. This study aims to dev...

Most of the industrial process requires a temperature level below 250?C which is easily achievable using solar energy. Pakistan is fortunate enough to have long sunlight hours and high intensity of solar insolation. The mean total irradiation falling on a horizontal plane is about 200-250 Watt per m2 per day. This precious source of natural energy...

Solar-based milk pasteurization enables decentralized maintenance of milk in remote areas of developing countries like Pakistan. Two innovative and efficient medium temperature range solar techniques; solar concentrator (SC) and evacuated tube collectors (ETC) were employed and compared based on theoretical and experimental analyses for an expedien...

Highlights Solar-based milk pasteurization enables decentralized maintenance of milk quality, particularly in remote areas of developing countries. Study for milk quality processed with solar technologies. Payback period calculation for indigenous machines. Comparative prices analysis of available commercially packed milk with solar process milk....

The heat extraction from and cooling of computer microprocessors are challenging tasks in the modern era. Previously, the microprocessors were usually cooled by air, but now industry is shifting towards using nanofluids, as their properties are more thermo-physically stable. The experimental and numerical studies have revealed that the rate of heat...

Energy management on the demand side is an important practice through which to address the challenge of energy shortage. In Pakistan, power plants have no specific energy management practice and a detail energy audit is normally observed as a one-time estimation that does not give significant information. In this study, an energy audit of a combine...

A solar based cold storage unit for the preservation of food products is an excellent way to reduce post-harvest losses at lower energy costs. Energy optimization is essential to improve the reliability of the system. In the case of cooling, a major factor to reduce energy consumption is the uniform distribution of air inside the cooling chamber to...

Post-harvest loss is a serious issue to address challenge of food security. A solar-grid hybrid cold storage system was developed and designed for on-farm preservation of perishables. Computational Fluid Dynamic analysis was performed to assess airflow and temperature distribution inside the cold chamber. The system comprises a 21.84 m3 cubical col...

This research work was conducted to design an algorithm for the biogas digester and demonstration of modern techniques to enrich the bio-methanation process. Initially, algorithms were generated and validated by design and operating digesters at selected sites. The designing and operational enhancement of biogas production were carried out using re...

Co-gasification is considered as a useful technique for post-treatment of anaerobic digestion residues. The present study has dealt with the efficiency parameter of 24 kWe downdraft biomass gasifier with 50% mixture ratio of wood chips + corn cobs and 50% ratio of sugarcane bagasse + coconut shells. The performance of the gasification process was a...

Solar distillation system has recently been explored and used for the extraction of essential oil from different agricultural herbs. The efficiency of conventional distillation systems is low and most are driven by hot gases. On the other hand, the solar-driven distillation system has higher efficiency and is based on renewable energy. The modified...

Biomass gasification is a process of converting solid biomass ingredients into combustible gas, which can be used in electricity generation. A biomass gasifier was designed with 30–40 kg/h downdraft, fabricated, and evaluated using sugarcane bagasse and coconut shells. The effect of equivalence ratio on syngas composition, heating value, syngas yie...

Thermal analysis was performed for a vertical cabinet solar hybrid dryer having a salient feature of perforated sheet along its entire height to achieve uniform drying. The dryer was integrated with a solar collector and gas burner for hybrid heating source. Experiments were performed using tomato at 55°C with solar, gas, and dual (solar-gas) heati...

Solar dryers are not so efficient due to improper control of air flow rate and its temperature. The issue is resolved by developing the hybrid solar dryer which was opted in this study. The experiments were conducted on maize at different drying air temperature (40°C, 45°C and 50°C), air flow rate (300 m3h-1, 400 m3h-1and 500 m3h-1) and drying time...

This research work was conducted to design an algorithm for the biogas digester and demonstration of modern techniques to enrich the bio-methanation process. Initially, algorithms were generated and validated by design and operating digesters at selected sites. The designing and operational enhancement of biogas production were carried out using re...

The current study provides an optimal design strategy for the metal hydride reactor for the thermal energy storage system for solar bakery applications. The sensitivity analysis of the annular truncated hollow conical fins type reactor was conducted by using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3a software. The gravimetric exergy output rate and exergy output of...

Storage of solar thermal energy is an effective way to overcome the issue of incompatibility between the solar system and its users. This paper proposed a novel perception by integrating a metal hydride based thermochemical energy storage (MH-TES) system with a solar bakery unit (SBU). A numerical simulation was performed by using COMSOL MULTIPHYSI...

The rapidly prevailing water scarcity issues has increased demand of brackish water desalination. The desalination using conventional energy is an energy intensive and expensive process. Luckily, the availability of solar energy offers an excellent opportunity to replace conventional energy with clean energy supply for desalination. The desalinatio...

Batch type food dryers are common to dry agricultural produce due to simple design, but they are prone to non-uniform drying and significant heating cost exclusively in the medium to large sizes. The current study illustrates a solar hybrid food dryer using a gas burner and solar collector (evacuated tube collector) as heating source along-with an...

Lack of accurate information for the drying kinetics is the main barrier to optimize drying processes effectively. Online monitoring of drying data is not common due to practical issues involved in set-up application. In this study an imaging system was developed for large drying units to investigate the quality changes (color kinetics and shrinkag...

Thermal energy storage technologies are gaining attention nowadays for uninterrupted supply of solar power in off-sunshine hours. An indigenized solar phase change material (PCM) system was developed and performance evaluated in the current study to efficiently store solar thermal power using a latent heat storage approach, which can be utilized in...

The water resources are depleting rapidly due to the increasing population of the world. Thus, it has become a big challenge to provide sustainable quality water for future generations. Unfortunately, due to decreasing rivers/canals water supply, the trend of groundwater pumping has increased for agricultural purposes during the last few decades es...

Hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) Demand-side management (DSM) Cost of energy (COE) A B S T R A C T Hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES) are becoming popular as stand-alone power systems for providing electricity in remote areas due to the advancement in renewable energy technologies and subsequent rise in the prices of conventional fuels. A...

The improper post milking handling and storage results in a complete wastage due to the microorganisms and bacterial multiplication present in raw milk. The torque load minimalizing in the chilling unit using a solar photovoltaic (PV) is indeed a challenging task for the smooth functioning of the milk chilling system especially for the conventional...

The improper post milking handling and storage results in a complete wastage due to the microorganisms and bacterial multiplication present in raw milk. The torque load minimalizing in the chilling unit using a solar photovoltaic (PV) is indeed a challenging task for the smooth functioning of the milk chilling system especially for the conventional...

The improper post milking handling and storage results in a complete wastage due to the microorganisms and bacterial multiplication present in raw milk. The torque load minimalizing in the chilling unit using a solar photovoltaic (PV) is indeed a challenging task for the smooth functioning of the milk chilling system especially for the conventional...

Pakistan is rich with potential of solar water pumping having huge amount of solar radiations all over the country. The present work aims to do a system evaluation of monitored solar water pumping system and optimization of the system at the Punjab District, Pakistan. Performance evaluation of PV powered water pumping unit was carried out for diffe...

There are more than one million tubewells in Pakistan including 750,000 diesels and 70,000 grid electricity operated in the Punjab, consuming enormous fuel and energy. The government is heavily subsidizing electric tariff for agricultural tubewells in many areas of the country putting additional burden on national exchequer. Poor productivity of wa...

Fresh fruits and vegetables have higher moisture contents and deteriorate over a short period of time if not handled appropriately. Available storage technologies such as refrigeration and controlled atmospheres are expensive as these need con‐ tinuous energy for system operation throughout the whole supply chain. So, the use of drying technique...

The IV and PV curves of Photovoltaic Modules is a way of obtaining their characteristics Parameters which reveal the performance of the PV Modules. The instruments used to investigate cell structure was Solar Thermal Imager THT70 and HT Solar IVw. Real in-times IV and PV cures were obtained from HT Solar IVw. The 2.160kWp solar system comprised of...

The current research has been conducted to investigate the capacity of an indigenously developed thermal oil based continuous solar roaster (CSR) for groundnuts roasting. A 10 m2 standing Scheffler fixed focus concentrator is used to target the incoming direct normal irradiance at casted aluminum surface of a heat receiver which transfers this heat...

Fresh fruits and vegetables have higher moisture contents and deteriorate over a short period of time if not handled appropriately. Available storage technologies such as refrigeration and controlled atmospheres are expensive as these need continuous energy for system operation throughout the whole supply chain. So, the use of drying techniques is...

Thermal energy storage technologies are gaining attention nowadays for uninterrupted supply of solar power in off-sunshine hours. An indigenized solar phase change material (PCM) system was developed and performance evaluated in the current study to efficiently store solar thermal power using a latent heat storage approach, which can be utilized in...

The study was carried out to evaluate the performance of a continuous solar roaster for the roasting of soybeans. The system comprises a 10 m² fixed focus concentrator coupled with the continuous solar roasting system which is designed for decentralized processing of agricultural products in medium to high temperature range. The independent variabl...

Rate of accidents at workplaces in Pakistan is high and investigations post accidents remain superficial. These investigations identify only one of the operators/workers or machine failure as the cause. They refrain from looking deeper and addressing the system-related flaws. Only few sectors are covered by health and safety-related laws: Safety in...

Persisting energy crises are seriously affecting the human growth index of rural community. Agriculture, being the main contributor in rural economy, is far below its potential. Despite the potential and resources of sustainable energy we lack policy, strategy, and suitable solutions to harvest this potential effectively. The production potentials...

Baking is an energy intensive unit operation. The thermal application of solar energy is getting attention in food processes by eliminating the facts of interrupted supply and fluctuated costs of nonrenewable energy sources. This study has been carried out for the design and development of solar bakery unit which comprises of a 10 m2 Scheffler refl...

The use of solar concentrating technique for cooking purpose has been widely reported rather than for the baking process which is rigidly precise and requires process controlled conditions. Secondly, the energy and exergy analyses are rarely made for the baking process. In this paper, an energy- and exergy-based thermal analysis of an innovative so...

The agro-climatic conditions of Pakistan ranging from tropical to temperate allow the growing of 40 different kinds of vegetables and 21 types of fruits. Due to lack of processing facilities, a considerable share of farm produce is spoiled and the farmers have to sell their products at very low market prices. With the introduction of demand based r...

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) was utilised for the determination of moisture content of potato slices with three thicknesses (5 mm, 7 mm, 9 mm) at three drying temperatures (50 °C, 60 °C, 70 °C) during convective drying in a laboratory hot air dryer. The Page, thin-layer drying model was found better to explain the drying kinetics with a fitting accu...

In Pakistan, solar energy is one of the attractive renewable energy sources with an irradiance availability of 800-900 W/m 2. The current study focus on the quantitative comparison of energy consumption and cost analysis of the solar PV system for the office with conventional appliances and energy conservative appliances. The case study is ORIC at...

Air heterogeneity in the drying chamber of the batch-type dryer is a major problem because uneven air distribution within the drying chamber reduces the product quality and dryer efficiency. To surmount this problem, a new dryer with central air distribution model has been designed and developed. This is the distinct design feature of the dryer, wh...

The current study reveals several efficient amenities that can affect the gasification process to improve syngas quality and yield. A comprehensive study was carried out using a 24kW downdraft gasifier to evaluate the effect of uniform air distribution in the oxidation zone, additional throat on the reactor temperature distribution and the overall...

Use of solar energy for cooking and steam generation is quite common around the world. However, use of solar energy for extraction of essential oils from medicinal and aromatic plants has recently been explored and its effects are still largely unknown. The current study is about essential oil extraction using a newly designed solar distillation sy...

Processing of different herbs by distillation technique was one of the agro-based industries which lie in medium temperature range (60-280 o C). This study has been carried out for essential oils extraction using solar distillation system as well as to perform the quality analysis of eucalyptus leaves (comaldulensis) essential oils using GC-MS anal...

The conventional drying methods are energy intensive and are not cost competitive. The severe energy crises in Pakistan during the last decade has decreased the interest in drying of farm produce which is resulting huge postharvest losses due to product spoilage and nonavailability of storage facilities. This study has been carried out for the perf...

Processing of different herbs by distillation technique was one of the agro-based industries which lie in medium temperature range (60-280 oC). This study has been carried out for essential oils extraction using solar distillation system as well as to perform the quality analysis of eucalyptus leaves (comaldulensis) essential oils using GC-MS analy...

Desalination is a long term and reliable solution for increasing the fresh water supply but this process is consuming huge amount of primary energy. Fossil fuel reserves are diminishing and increasing fossil fuels combustion has also resulted severe climatic and environmental issues. In the meanwhile, the enormous amount of solar energy 5–5.5 kWh/m...

Desalination of brackish water is a very suitable approach to augment the exponentially increasing fresh water demands due to uncontrolled population growth in developing countries. Keeping in view the local needs of small families residing in remote areas of the country and having no access to fresh water availability, therefore, this research has...

Energy is a cooperative agenda of world community because energy consumption is projected to increase 819 quadrillion BTUs in 2040, which is 47% increase of 558 quadrillion BTUs in 2014. The depletion of conventional energy sources is forcing the researchers to explore renewable energy resources for power generation. In Pakistan, solar energy is on...

Presently photovoltaic systems are extensively used almost in every country globally, for a variety of domestic, off-grid remote areas, far off telecommunication facilities and on-farm pumping out underground water. To make the model PV system whose output was DC energy, viable for AC appliances, inverters were used in the PV system. Further, to tr...

Unfortunately, Pakistan is facing severe energy crises from the last decade due to increasing population and heavily dependence on the import of the fossil fuels. The electricity breakdown/blackouts was 14–18 h in rural areas and 8–10 h in urban areas. This situation has drastically affected the residential, industrial and commercial sector of the...

Electricity is a rudimentary need to perform our industrial, commercial, household and agricultural activities. In the rapidly growing economies, like Pakistan, the demand for electricity is constantly increasing. Increasing energy demand puts incredible pressure on the countries' energy infrastructure. Producing electricity from fossil fuel has, i...

A cascade organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system utilizing solar energy and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for thermal power generation is proposed. Energy from solar collectors drives the evaporation of working fluid in the top cycle (I). The heat released by cycle I facilitates the evaporation of working fluid in the bottom cycle (II). LNG is the cold s...

Parabolic trough collectors (PTCs) have become the most popular technology to harvest solar energy in high-temperature solar thermal utilization areas. The evacuated tube used as the receiver of PTC is the key part and has the highest temperature in the entire system. Heat loss occurs in the evacuated tube at high temperature mainly through thermal...