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| dc.contributor.author | Fentaw, Berihun Masrie | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-02-01T10:32:07Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-02-01T10:32:07Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2023-08 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://ir.bdu.edu.et/handle/123456789/15597 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Tomato is a staple horticultural crop in Ethiopia; but lack of affordable technologies to transform the product in to shelf stable product results an extensive postharvest loss. Solar processing is a good option to reduce the loss by removing moisture and producing stable products. In this study, parabolic solar concentrator was constructed from local cheapest materials. The cooker consists of mathematically specified geometrical dimensions. Performance was evaluated through thermal efficiency and concentration power using different reflectors (Glass mirror, A.foil) and receivers(Coated, Ordinary). Pastes were made from three tomato varieties (Anna, Galillea and Randah F1) using the constructed prototype. Minitab software version 21 was used to analyze the data. Twosample t-test was applied to compare the average physicochemical, microbial, and sensory measurements between pastes made using solar versus conventional powers, no significant differences observed, except vitamin C since high temperature destructs the vitamine. The glass mirror with coated receiver has a higher efficiency of 22.4%, a higher concentration power of 203.1W compared to an aluminum foil equipped with an ordinary receiver which resulted in 11% and 101W. The thermal efficiency and concentration power were gradually raised to a level where boiling started, and then slowly reduced over time since more energy required to evaporate the bound water until the required TSS obtained. In aluminium foil and ordinary receiver equipped cooker, the pastes produced had a longer evaporation time. This resulted in a reduction of Total Acidity, Total Soluble Solids, and an increase in moisture, water activity and vitamin C levels. During the six month microbial storage test; products were in safe microbial limit excluding paste processed from Anna variety using aluminium foil and ordinary receiver. The pastes from Anna variety had the highest levels of total soluble solids and received the highest overall acceptability score of 4.13±0.94. Paste from Galillea variety was found to be nutritionally important due to its vitamin C content. The color, vitamin C, water activity, moisture content, titratable acidity, and total yeast and molds were all significantly impacted by all the factors studied at p<0.05. In this study, tomato shelf life maximaztion by introducing free energy alternative for value-added tomato production across the Northwestern Ethiopia was tested. Key words: Loss, Paste, Performance, Quality, Reflectors, Solar cooker, Variety | en_US |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.subject | Chemical and Food Engineering | en_US |
| dc.title | “Development and performance evaluation of parabolic solar cooker for Tomato Paste Production in North West Ethiopia” | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
