Efficient cooling at post-harvest phase: a comparative study between air-cooling and hydro-cooling processes

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira, João
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Silva, Pedro Dinho da, Pires, Luís C., Gaspar, Pedro Dinis, Nunes, José
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/7406
• topic: Pre-cooling; Computer modeling; Post-harvest; Peach; Experimental behavior

The pre-cooling of peaches is a very demanding process regarding energy conservation and management. Inappropriate cooling techniques and cooling times lead to post-harvest phase losses, resulting in wasted energy and produce. This work studies the difference in cooling time between air and hydro-cooling and the influence of peach size in their cooling time in the post-harvest phase. A numerical model was developed to evaluate the peach temperature during the pre-cooling stage. The results from the model were compared with experimental data and a set of correlations of the half-cooling time and the seven eighth cooling time as a function of the peach size were developed. Globally, the information provided in this work in terms of cooling times in both air and hydro cooling equipments could be used to improve the efficiency of the pre-cooling process by keeping the quality of the produce but reducing the energy consumption by peach.