Study on Cooling Characteristics of the Tunnel Type Pressure Pre-Cooling System

An understanding of the cooling requirements of horticultural commodities begins with adequate knowledge of their biological responses. All fresh horticultural products are living organisms, carrying on the many biological processes that are essential to the maintenance of life. The pre-cooling is essential technique for the construction of cold chain system, which is necessary to maintain marketing quality of fresh produces during the transportation and distribution. The purpose of this study is to develop the pressure cooling tunnel using conveyer for the reduction of labor and improvement of pre-cooling efficiency. Performance of developed facility was tested for the strawberries, tomatoes and Chinese cabbages. Cooling ratio as a result of pre-cooling efficiency was 1.57, 1.56 and 1.32 for strawberries, tomatoes, and Chinese cabbages respectively. Cooling ratio decreased with increasing the distance of heat conduction from surface to center. The cooling ratio of Chinese cabbages was lower than that of fruit because of its head and leaf. In aspect of cooling uniformity, there was no significant difference of final temperature among inlet, outlet and middle layers of cold air in fresh produces. After pre-cooling treatment, quality changes were measured for the weight loss, Vit. C content, and titratable acidity. The quality of pre-cooling treatment was better than that of non-treatment and was kept on well during long-term storage.