CHEE Seminar: Maria Dolores Rovira
Monday, November 8, 2021 – 3:00 PM
María Dolores Rovira
Department Chair
Process Engineering and Environmental Sciences
Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas
“Respiration rate study to design effective packaging for Salvadoran food exports”
Harshbarger Bldg., Room 206
Zoom: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/84145629239
Social Hour: Harshbarger 118B, 2:30 to 2:50 PM
ABSTRACT:
Crotalaria longirostrata (chipilín), Spondias purpurea (jocote), and Fernaldia pandurate (loroco) are highly commercialized Salvadoran food products that are widely cultivated in Central America. However, the lack of information about their natural degradation process hinders the design of effective packaging for exportation to other countries. To overcome this gap in knowledge, the project aims to characterize the respiration rates and shelf lives of these fruits and vegetables. For the respiration kinetics, a closed-chamber approach was used at temperatures of 6, 20 and 30 ◦C. To formulate the respiration rates in terms of CO2 and O2, a three-parameter exponential equation was used. The gas concentration results were also fitted to an enzyme respiration model of the Michaelis-Menten type. Furthermore, the respiration rates from the enzyme kinetics model were used to determine the temperature effects on respiration. For the shelf-lives, data collected from a sensory panel were fitted to the Weibull’s probabilistic distribution using unpacked and packed species with low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and polypropylene (PP). Overall, results show that the enzyme kinetics model, based on competitive inhibition of CO2, is a good representation of the respiration process. The shelf-life results indicated that packaging with LDPE and PP bags increased the shelf-life by factors of 3.7 and 2.5, respectively, compared to storage without packaging.
BIOSKETCH:
María Dolores Rovira is the department chair of Process Engineering and Environmental Sciences at the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA), El Salvador. She graduated as Chemical Engineer from UCA, received a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from the Instituto Químico de Sarriá (IQS) of the Universidad Ramón Llull, Spain, where she also graduated with a master’s degree in Chemical Technology. Since she joined the UCA in 2004, Dr. Rovira has been in charge of important research projects for the Salvadoran society, which includes the design of modified atmosphere packaging, kinetic modeling of native fruits and vegetables, and water quality monitoring of wetlands. Her research areas include control, prevention and monitoring of polluted environments; kinetics; reactor design; natural resources; characterization of polymers; and development of novel technologies for the plastic industry.