Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 25 ISSUE 3
Written by Tarek FOUDA, Adel Hamed EL-BAHNASAWY, Nourhan KASSAB

The aim of this study the effect of respiration rate and ventilation rate in the fruit ripening models and estimate the oxygen consumption and CO₂ production. In this investigation, with three banana ripening models .Model 1's have 72 m³ space had thermally insulated cement walls that were 30 mm thick; Model 2's 60 m³ area was similarly insulated with cement walls, but these walls were 12.5 mm thick; and Model 3's 38 m³ area was insulated with ceramic walls, 24 mm thick. The measurement indicators were the oxygen consumption, CO₂ production, Ventilation Rate, Temperature-Dependent Respiration Rate, heat production during respiration and energy balance. The findings demonstrated that the three ripening models' data were considerably impacted by temperature, model size, and banana ripening stages, where ripe bananas in model 1 (the largest) recorded the highest values in respiration rate, ventilation requirements and respiration temperature of bananas, where the values reached 187.556 g CO₂/kg/h, 2.55 m3/h and 82.57 kW, respectively. The economic impact of banana storage reflects an increase in the profit period and thus a shortened investment Payback period.

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