BACKGROUND: Respiration is an important physiological activity of eggs and is closely related to their freshness. To further observe the diffusion of carbon dioxide released by egg respiration, we used a respirometer to measure the respiration parameters of eggs stored at room temperature and performed a respiration simulation using Fluent software. This paper also explores the relationship between respiratory intensity, freshness, and storage period.
RESULTS:The results demonstrate that the diffusion of carbon dioxide released from the respiration of eggs is related to the characteristics of heavy gas diffusion. By comparison, the simulated value (0.0199 m s −1 ) is close to the experimental value (0.0208 m s −1 ), which indicates that the simulation and analysis results are valid. In addition, the logarithmic model was used to assess the relationship between respiration intensity, Haugh unit, and the yolk index (R 2 values 0.89 and 0.87). The R 2 of the relationship between the real and the predicted Haugh unit value and the yolk index are 0.9 and 0.84 respectively, indicating that the model is a good fit. The equivalent egg age model was established using nonlinear regression, where the correlation coefficient R was 0.888 and P < 0.01, indicating it was both stable and reliable.CONCLUSION: The standard k-ε model is suitable for egg respiration simulation analysis. Respiratory intensity can be used as a potential index for nondestructive testing of egg freshness, which is a new method for nondestructive testing of egg freshness and storage period.