Bamboo Fruit Storage Chamber (FSC) Equipped with Ethylene-Degrading Manganese Doped Titanium Oxide Nanomaterial as Storage for Banana (Musa acuminata)

Abstract

As a climacteric fruit, banana undergoes rapid ripening induced by the hormone ethylene, which is produced by autocatalytic reactions. Titanium dioxide is a photocatalytic compound with the ability to degrade ethylene to water and carbon dioxide. This compound can be used to control the concentration of ethylene inside storage chambers to delay the ripening process of bananas in storage. A passive modified atmosphere is another method to delay ripening by using storage spaces with limited air flow. This study attempts to investigate the performance of TiO2-Mn and bamboo fruit storage chamber (FSC) to delay the ripening of bananas by measuring characteristic physiological changes for 7 days which included ethylene accumulation in storage space, rate of ethylene production, rate of respiration, starch content, and soluble sugar content. The results show that the use of FSC in combination with TiO2-Mn can be used to delay the ripening of bananas. This study also investigated the effect of volumetric occupation to the efficacy of FSC by varying the number of banana fingers in storage and varying the volume of the chamber. While the volume of the FSC did not produce a significant difference in performance, the number of bananas stored in each FSC greatly influenced the delay-ripening ability of FSC with TiO2-Mn. At the end of the study, a profile plotted with MATLAB is presented to show the relationship of ethylene concentration in FSC in respect to storage time and number of fingers stored.