Performance on concentrating regeneration type solar soil deinsectization and sterilization device

Abstract: In the last several decades, the problem of food shortage has been one of the main challenges in the world. It is necessary to enhance the use of protected agriculture in order to promote better microclimate conditions allowing high productivity, stable quality, earliest harvest dates and thus better economic output and good environment quality and food security. However, there are pests and pathogenic bacteria in the soil of agriculture production systems due to an ideal temperature, no wind and high humidity conditions in soil. Then soil disinfection treatments are used in agriculture before planting high-value cash crops, to reduce soil-borne crops pests including bacterial, fungal and nematode pathogens, weeds and insects. Methyl bromide fumigation is the widely used as a disinfection method due to its low cost and high effectiveness. But gaseous methyl bromide may destroy stratospheric ozone. Hence, forthcoming agro-ecological techniques should both reduce pollution hazards and be compatible with sustainable development guidelines. Many other chemical fumigants have become strongly restricted and more ecological treatments are now been sought. Alternative sustainable techniques such as soil electrical disinfection, steam soil disinfection and flame soil disinfection are utilized. However, many of these methods have the major drawbacks of their effect strongly depends on fossil energy. Moreover, the employment on a large scale of these methods could lead to a strong increase in environmental pollution. For this reason, in this paper, we presented a novel concentrating regeneration type solar soil extermination and sterilization device, which used high temperature air to kill soil-borne crop pests, reducing the employment of chemical fumigants and improving the quality of agriculture products. The device consisted of trough compound parabolic concentrating system, soil feed system, soil and air regeneration system and forced draft system, et al. The operational principle of concentrating light and regeneration type solar soil extermination and sterilization device was introduced. A 3D model of the concentrator supported with optical analysis software was used to analyze the tracking accuracy. The distribution of the concentrated light of the absorber could be visualized. Based on the simulation results, an experimental set-up, which can be used to verify the heat collection efficiency and the heating temperature, was designed and constructed. The results indicated that the overall ray's receiving rate of the trough compound parabolic concentrating collector of 99.66%-62.20% were obtained with radial incidence angles of 0°-7°. The outlet air temperature of the device increased with the decreasing the air flow rate. The maximum outlet air temperature of the device at the air flow rate of 1.075m/s was higher than that of the device at the air flow rate of 4.076 m/s by 70 ℃. Under good sunshine in winter, the outlet air maximum temperature of the device with the tracking accuracy of 5°and the concentrating rate of 3.6 can reach to 88 ℃, and the heat efficiency can reach about 65%, thus, it is able to provide enough heat to soil disinfection in the protected agriculture, which is an idea solar soil extermination and sterilization method for protected agriculture.