Design of Modified Atmosphere Packaging Systems: Modeling Oxygen Concentrations Within Sealed Packages of Tomato Fruits

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Abstract
A method was developed for determination of O2 consumption as a function of O2 concentration by mathematical characterization of O2 depletion by a tomato fruit in a closed system with time. Mathematical equations were developed describing O2 consumption as a function of O2 concentration for breaker, pink and red tomato fruit and were used to model film permeability characteristics (O2 permeability coefficient, surface area, thickness) as a function of fruit weight to achieve desired sealed package concentrations of O2 in modified atmosphere packages. Equations were also developed to describe the time for initial O2 establishment as affected by void volume. Calculations are presented for optimizing package parameters for tomato fruit.