Experimental Study of Thermal Performance of Different Fruit Packaging Box Designs

Abstract

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.

CFD Modelling of the Thermal Performance of Fruit Packaging Boxes—Influence of Vent-Holes Design

“…The fruit model considers solid zones with two different solid properties, polystyrene and fruit models, as shown in Figure 3b. This condition was required to simulate the experimental set-up described in [17][18][19][20]. As the buoyancy and radiation effects are assumed negligible, they are not taken into account.…”

“…Predictions are monitored and data are exported at the end of each hour of simulation. The simulation time was set to 8 h because in the experimental tests performed there were no temperature changes at the end of this time [17][18][19][20]. The numerical simulation took around 16 h to converge, being performed on an Intel ® Xeon ® CPU @ (3.47 GHz) with 256 GB of RAM.…”

Thermal Management of Short-Range Distribution of Perishable Food Products Using Phase Change Materials in Packaging: Real-Time Field Data Acquisition

“…This diversification of PCM categories allows for a wide range of potential applications, tailoring their usage according to the specific thermal management requirements. Several studies have explored the thermal performance of various fruit packaging crates [22][23][24][25][26]. Studies also analyzed the utility of PCM pouches for active and intelligent packaging [27,28], and the measurement of temperatures and relative humidity during the transportation of horticultural goods [8].…”

“…Meanwhile, reference [24] provides experimental evidence of the thermal response of two types of food alveoli, comparing their performance with and without the integration of PCM. The authors demonstrated that aluminum foil alveoli, in conjunction with PCM, delayed the heating process effectively.…”

Effects of Edible Coating and Modified Atmosphere Technology on the Physiology and Quality of Mangoes after Low-Temperature Transportation at 13 °C in Vibration Mitigation Packaging

“…Adequate packaging can reduce the physical damage of the fruit during transportation and ensure a better appearance [9]. At present, mangoes are packaged in polyethylene foam mesh sleeves, and placed in polystyrene foam boxes, except for high-end consumer products.…”