Effect of Temperature and Time on Oxygen Consumption by Olive Fruit: Empirical Study and Simulation in a Non-Ventilated Container

Abstract

Fermentation processes within olive fruit jeopardize the quality of the extracted oil. Aeration, temperature, and time play a crucial role in attaining the critical threshold at which an aerobic respiration shifts towards anaerobic. In this work, the O2 consumption and CO2 production of olive fruit kept in a closed container at different temperatures (5–45 °C) were measured over 7 h. The data allowed us to describe the relationship between the temperature and the respiration rate as an Arrhenius function and simulate the oxygen consumption in the inner part of a container full of fruit with low aeration, considering the generated respiration heat over time. The simulation revealed that olives risk shifting to anaerobic respiration after 3 h at 25 °C and less than 2 h at 35 °C when kept in a non-ventilated environment. The results underline the irreversible damage that high day temperatures can produce during the time before fruit processing, especially during transport. Lowering, as soon as possible, the field temperature thus comes to the fore as a necessary strategy to guarantee the quality of the olives before their processing, like most of the fruit that is harvested at excessive temperatures.