Queensland scientists invent a powder to ripen fruit
Scientists from the University of Queensland (UQ) are set to revolutionise the fresh fruit industry with a new technology that converts gases into a powder form.
Professor Bhesh Bhandari and PhD student Mr Binh Ho, from UQ’s School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, have developed a technology that will dramatically improve the safety, efficiency and effort involved in controlled ripening of fruit.
Compressed ethylene gas is used to control ripen fruit such as bananas, mangoes, avocadoes, citrus and tomatoes that are picked at “commercial maturity”, which is a hard green, but mature stage, before ripening has started.
The ethylene gas is released from the complex powder when the temperature and humidity is raised.
PhD student Mr Binh Ho said that the scientists had developed a food grade, “environmentally friendly” biological powder that can release the ethylene gas “very quickly in humid and high temperature conditions.”
“This would make handling the ethylene much easier and safer and allow for very small amounts to be used to ripen small batches of fruit,” Mr Ho said.
“It could also potentially be placed in trucks that transport the fruit from the farm so that the fruit arrives at the market perfectly ripe,” he added.
Professor Bhandari presented his findings at the International Drying Symposium in China last week, where he was also presented with an international award in recognition of his research excellence in drying science and technology.
Awarded just once every four years, the “Excellence in Drying Award” is presented by the International Drying Symposium Committee to the world’s top researcher in recognition of their achievements in the transfer of fundamentals into practice. The award is sponsored by AFSIA (French Association for Drying in Industry and Agriculture).
Professor Bhandari and Mr Ho are working with UniQuest, UQ’s main research commercialisation company, to prepare the technology for industry investment and licensing opportunities. An application for patent protection for the technology has been made.
Wouldn’t it be good if this powder was available in household quanties so that rather than ripening the fruit on the truck and having it sit around in markets and storerooms in a ripened state, the final consumer could purchase and control state of readiness to eat!