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Forced-air cooling of banana

This work presents the cooling curves for bananas Prata, (Musa balbisiana Colla), and determinates half-cooling and seven-eight cooling times and the cooling rate. Bananas were kept in a cold room with a forced-air system at 7ºC and RH = 87.6±3.8%. The experiment was conducted in a 2x2 factorial design, to test the effects of two flow rates (factors) of air passing through the product, and two types of boxes (levels). The statistical analysis was performed at p<0.10. The air flow rates were 1933 and 1160 m³/h and the boxes differed from each other by the area of openings, allowing more or less contact of the cooling media with the product (boxes with 40% or 3,5% of opening area). Significant differences were observed between cooling times of the product. The shortest cooling time was reached when the product was packed in a box with 40% of opening area and with the largest air flow rate of 1933 m³/h. The longest cooling time was obtained using a box with 3,2% of opening area and with the smallest air flow of 1160 m³/h. The results demonstrated the influence of the package opening area and the air flow on the cooling rate of bananas. The average time cooling was 117 min at 555 min in the different treatments. There is no statistical difference on weight loss.

Musa balbisiana Colla; cooling time; air flow rate; weight loss


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