MEASUREMENT OF HEAT OF RESPIRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Abstract

Perishable products that are produced or consumed seasonally require cold storage as a buffer between pro-duction and market place. But due to the non-availability of adequate cold storage facilities, considerable loss of Indian fruits and vegetables, the: r perishable products, occur a, during their storage. So in order to develop proper storage facilities in India, data of heat of respi-ration of Indian fruits and vegetables becomes necessary. An experimental setup was used to measure the rate of heat of respiration by indirect method i.e. by measuring the amount of carbondioxide evolved by a certain weight of specimen at a definite temperature in a given time. The rate of carbondio 3.de production was then translated into the rate of heat production by using the thermal equivalent of cerbondi oxi de production due to oxidation of sucrose. In the present work respiration rates of onions, lemons, apples and pears have been measured at four tempe- ratures, viz. 60, 80, 120 and 160C. The measured data are compared with the values reported by H.C. Gore (2) , i.H. Smith (4) and R.C. Gunther CO). The values cbtained for onion, apple and pear are well within the range reported in literature while that for lemon are higher than those repor-ted in literature. However, the logarithm of the respiration rate has been found to increase with the tempera