Preventing produce spoilage in supermarkets

Spoiled fruits and vegetables can eat into
the profits of supermarkets.

Supermarkets in the United States lose about 10 percent of their fruits and vegetables to spoilage every single year, eating into their profit margins and making things difficult.

Fresh fruits and vegetables often spoil when they are exposed to too much ethylene gas, which promotes ripening and is produced by many fresh products themselves.

For example, bananas will stay green until they release enough ethylene to start the ripening process.

Once ripening begins, more ethylene is produced, and the ripening accelerates. If that perfect yellow banana is not eaten at peak ripeness, ethylene will turn it brown and mushy.

Fruit distributors often keep an eye on ethylene levels by installing monitors, but these systems are generally too pricey for supermarkets to install.

Supermarkets may be able to detect ripe produce with a new sensor that is being developed by an MIT professor and his students, which can detect tiny amounts of ethylene gas and help grocers decide which items to put on sale before they get too ripe.

The sensor consists of carbon nanotubes and copper atoms as well as tiny beads of polystyrene. It can detect concentrations of ethylene as low as 0.5 parts per million. Ethylene concentration required for food ripening is usually between 0.1 and one part per million.

If the sensors become commercialized, they will be very affordable, since it costs about one dollar to make it.

Source: MIT News Office

Remove ethylene gas with a carbon air cleaner

Activated carbon can remove
gases, odors and chemicals.

A portable, powerful air cleaner with a deep-bed activated carbon filter can also help control the concentrations of ethylene gas in supermarkets and similar environments.

Electrocorp offers high efficiency air cleaners with a specially impregnated carbon that can adsorb ethylene gas and help fruits and vegetables last longer.

The air cleaners for commercial and industrial applications come in all sizes and filter combinations, promising the best overall protection from airborne chemicals and gases, odors and fumes, particles and dust, bacteria and viruses as well as mold.

For more information and specific recommendations, contact Electrocorp today.
 

Report pegs industrial air cleaner market at $6.3 billion US for 2012

Activated carbon is a preferred adsorbent for
gaseous contaminants in many industrial applications.

The Scrubber/Adsorber/Biofilter World Markets report by McIlvaine paints a positive outlook for the industry for next year – forecasting demand from the pulp and paper, chemicals, metals, mining, waste incineration, refining and waste-water industries.

The biggest market will be East Asia by far, the report says, with North America in the second position.

The Canadian and American pulp and paper industry may be looking at scrubbers for recovery furnaces, lime kilns and toxin remobal elsewhere in the processes.

China and Indonesia are expected to be big purchasers, especially for the steel industry (to capture dust and other emissions) and the cement industry, while Indonesia and other East Asia countries have a growing pulp and paper industry in need of odor and chemical control.

Source: Filtration+Separation

Industrial air cleaners for improved IAQ

AirRhino: Powerful air cleaner

Electrocorp offers complete air treatment solutions for a range of industry and business application, including

• Pulp and paper mills
• Chemical processing plants
• Odor and chemical control

The air cleaners feature a large activated carbon filter, HEPA and UV filtration to remove many chemicals, odors, gases, fumes, particles, dust, bacteria, viruses and mold from the ambient air.

Different carbon blends are available to target specific gaseous pollutants.

Contact Electrocorp for more information and recommendations.