Modeling on respiration kinetics and modified atmospheric packaging of fig fruit

Abstract

The article demonstrates the effect of the respiration rate of fig fruit at different storage temperatures (5–35 °C) and the designing of its modified atmospheric packaging. The average O₂ consumption rates $\left( {{\text{R}}_{{{\text{O}}_{2} }} } \right)$ and CO₂ evolution rate $\left( {{\text{R}}_{{{\text{CO}}_{2} }} } \right)$ of fig fruits within 5–35 °C were varied from 4.02 to 26.18 mL kg⁻¹ h⁻¹ and 4.89 to 29.19 mL kg⁻¹ h⁻¹, respectively. The respiration rate at 35 °C was increased up to 6.51 times in terms of O₂ and 5.97 times in terms of CO₂ than the respiration rate at 5 °C. The results showed that under steady state condition at 35 °C there were almost 43.3% and 42.8% decrease in ${\text{R}}_{{{\text{O}}_{2} }}$ and ${\text{R}}_{{{\text{CO}}_{2} }}$ values with respect to increase in time. The enzyme kinetics model in combination with the Arrhenius equation precisely predicted the respiration rate of fig fruit at different storage temperatures. The maximum respiration rate (V_m) for the enzyme kinetics model was increased from 10.910 to 45.620 mL kg⁻¹ h⁻¹ in terms of O₂ and from 12.670 to 50.310 mL kg⁻¹ h⁻¹ in terms of CO₂. The designing of modified atmospheric packaging was done to evaluate the influence of time and temperature on the respiration rate of fig fruit with various packaging materials. The modified atmosphere in polypropylene package with equilibrium concentration for O₂ (0.0878) and CO₂ (0.0971) was established within a period of 14 h was found to be the best suitable packaging material for extending the shelf life of fig fruit.