A Review of Ethylene Permeability of Films

Abstract

Ethylene plays a major role in regulating fruit ripening and fresh produce senescence during the postharvest period. Accumulated ethylene inside a fresh produce package has the potential to stimulate physiological activity and consequently accelerate deterioration, limiting storage life and leading to product losses. Current scientific effort focuses on the minimization of ethylene effects through ethylene removal or suppression of ethylene response. Other researchers are focussing on the development of sensors for measuring ethylene exposure within supply chain systems in order to be able to use this information to indicate produce quality and predict remaining shelf life. Full and optimal utilization of either ethylene removal or sensing technologies requires knowledge of the rates in which ethylene can flow to or from the package that the product is contained in. This study discusses the need for ethylene permeability data for polymer films and reviews the data available. Ethylene permeability of commercial films was found to range from 57 to 2.7 × 10 À16 mol.m/m 2 .s.Pa at ambient temperatures, with activation energies being in the range of 37 000-48 000 J/mol. Amongst novel films, some containing zeolites could be 10 times more permeable, while permeability of wheat gluten films was highly influenced by relative humidity. However, generally, to date, it would seem that there is a scarcity of information on the transmission of ethylene through commonly used materials, especially at industrially relevant conditions of low temperature and high relative humidity, making prediction of ethylene conditions within a commercial package difficult. Collection of ethylene transmission data for the wide range of available films at industrially relevant conditions is required in order to maximize the utilization of newly developed ethylene removal or sensing technologies and subsequently contribute to the reduction in fresh produce losses within the supply chain.

Measuring ethylene in postharvest biology research using the laser-based ETD-300 ethylene detector

“…Knowledge of gas permeability is an important design parameters when selecting films for packaging fruit, as this will influence the ethylene equilibrium within the package environment [ 64 ]. In addition, ethylene diffusion in fruit tissue may in part explain differences in response by different fruit.…”

Recent Developments in Smart Food Packaging Focused on Biobased and Biodegradable Polymers

“…Ethylene (C H 4 ) is a phytohormone which accelerates fruit and vegetable breathing and promotes its ripening, softening and senescence, even in a low concentration. Eliminating C 2 H 4 from a package helps to delay the ripening rate of climacteric fruit, a crucial issue for fresh fruit exportation (East et al, 2015). The C 2 H 4 can be controlled in three ways: (i) reduction of the C 2 H 4 concentration through MAP by the exchange of the different gases; (ii) use of micro-perforated packaging materials; and iii) removal of ethylene through the use of C 2 H 4 scavengers or absorbers (Vilela et al, 2018;Gaikwad et al, 2020).…”

Permeability evaluation of natural sausage casings

“…Відо мі результати проникності водяної пари, азоту, кисню й вуглекислого газу через плівкипокриття на основі білкового ізоляту сироватки [10]. Досить широко роз глянуто питання проникності етиленових плівок [11]. З позиції оцінки безпечності цікавими є дослідження міграції важких мономерів з багатошарових поліамідних плівок у харчові модельні системи [12].…”