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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Packaging was recently identified as an essential element in addressing the key challenge
of sustainable food supply and is gaining interest among researchers. It is a central element in
food quality preservation due to its role in heat and mass exchange with the external atmosphere,
contributing to the preservation of food quality during storage and extending food shelf life. This
work proposes three new packaging configurations with the same size but different geometry and
ventilation hole sizes and geometry, that change the conditions in which the heat and mass exchange
occurs, during either the cooling period of fruits, inside the cooling chamber, or during the period
when the packaging is exposed to ambient conditions, outside the cooling chamber. For this purpose,
packages with fruit models that replicate the properties of real fruit were subjected to a cooling
process inside a cooling chamber for 8 h. Subsequently, during the heating phase, the packages were
exposed to ambient conditions for 10 h. Thermal conditions were also monitored, both inside and
outside the chamber. Additionally, for comparative purposes, the thermal behavior of commercial
packaging was also evaluated for the same operating conditions in the cooling and heating phases.
The results show that the new packages do not substantially promote the preservation of fruits in
the cooling phase, but in the heating phase, they ensure an extension of the period with proper
thermal conditions of up to 50% in relation to the conventional packaging. This result is particularly
important since the heating phase, in which fruits are outside the storage chamber, is the period with
the greatest impact on the fruits’ useful life.
Description
Keywords
Fruit Packaging Box Thermal Performance Experimental Study