<![CDATA[Affordable postharvest processing equipment requires careful management of heat and airflow, particularly when electrical capacity is limited. This study assessed the thermal and energy performance of a compact modular-airflow food-processing chamber and examined its application to fruit dehydration and frozen-meat thawing. A 15.6 L insulated chamber used incandescent heaters rated at 60, 100, and 150 W and interchangeable recirculation, exhaust, and ambient-air intake modules. The no-load thermal experiment followed a 3 × 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of heating power, airflow mode (recirculation or exhaust), and one or two active fan modules, with three replicates per condition. Temperature, stabilization time, and 15-min electrical consumption were evaluated; fruit dehydration and meat thawing were reported descriptively. Recirculation maintained higher chamber temperatures than exhaust operation. Using two recirculation modules reduced the reported apparent vertical temperature difference by approximately 53–62% compared with one module. Electrical use during the no-load tests ranged from 15.53 to 38.57 Wh. In the fruit trials, the 150 W two-module exhaust treatment produced the highest recorded gravimetric mass losses, 69.0% for citrus and 67.6% for strawberry, with specific energy consumption of 2.29 and 2.34 Wh per gram of removed mass, respectively. Two-module ambient-air intake shortened the observed thawing endpoint at 60 and 100 W. These findings indicate that interchangeable airflow arrangements can support distinct thermal-processing tasks within one small chamber, although further product-quality and airflow measurements are needed before broader performance claims can be made.]]>
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