An Experimental Investigation on a Novel Hybrid Greenhouse for Plantation in UAE Climate

In this project, an intelligent greenhouse system was designed and implemented to increase the growth of crops that cannot be harvested during summer in the UAE. In the first stage, a detailed investigation was carried out on a greenhouse using an air conditioning system to prove its enough ability to improve the conditions for the plantation of different crops like cucumber, mint, chili, eggplant, and squash. After a successful investigation of the greenhouse, a suitable and alternative system was proposed, in which underground water was used for cooling the system, an available energy resource in UAE. The underground water was pumped to an insulated pipe and supplied to the radiators that work as heat exchangers to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another to cool inside the greenhouse. The radiator outlet water can be used for further applications like grass irrigation. The traditional system (evaporative air cooler) and the proposed two systems (air-conditioning and heat exchanger) were compared. It was found that the newly proposed technique using radiators as heat exchangers showed better performance compared to other systems. Finally, a further investigation on heat exchangers was conducted using clay material, which plays a dual role in the cooling system, such as acting as an insulator and reducing the water temperature at the radiator's inlet and hence improving the system performance.