Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020

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Postharvest Biology and Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/postharvbio

Perforation-mediated modied atmosphere packaging. Part II. Implementation

and numerical solution of a mathematical model
T.J. Rennie , S. Tavoularis
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1N 6H5

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The present article describes the numerical implementation of a space-and-time dependent mathemat-
Received 9 July 2007 ical model of perforation-mediated modied atmosphere packaging for respiring commodities as Part II
Accepted 14 June 2008 of a study in which the mathematical model is described in Part I. The model includes species transport
of CO2 , H2 O, N2 , and O2 through the MaxwellStefan equations, velocity and pressure through Darcys
Keywords: law and the NavierStokes equations, and temperature of the gas mixture and the commodity through
Modied atmosphere packaging
the energy equation. Numerical solutions of the coupled system of equations were obtained using the
Perforations
nite-element method. To illustrate the capabilities of the general approach, simulations of a package of
Respiration
Gas exchange
strawberries have been presented, for which experimental results are available in the literature. Com-
Mathematical model parison of the measurements and the model predictions were fair, considering the uncertainty of the
Numerical modelling available information. The sensitivities of the solution to the respiration rate model, respiration rates,
porosity, package aspect ratio, relative humidity, transpiration coefcients, storage temperature, CO2 sol-
ubility and volume of ambient storage area considered were examined. The steady-state concentrations of
O2 and CO2 in the package were found to be very sensitive to the value of respiration rate, but much less so
to changes of other input parameters within the ranges considered. The steady-state commodity temper-
ature depended on the aspect ratio of the package. Including the CO2 solubility in the commodity did not
affect the steady-state gas concentrations, but it increased the time required for the CO2 concentration to
reach equilibrium in the package. It was shown that neglecting the ambient space beyond the perforation
overpredicted the steady-state O2 concentration. Approximately 80% of the resistance to diffusion was
found to occur within the perforation, with the remainder equally divided between the spaces beyond
each end of the perforation.
2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction not predict whether a steady-state would actually be achieved,

The efcient design of optimal perforation-mediated modied
atmosphere packaging requires the use of sophisticated mathemat-
ical models, which would describe accurately all relevant transport
and biological phenomena, as well as the temporal and spatial vari-
ations of the important properties. Current models make use of
several simplications and empirical input, which limit their ranges
of application or provide only part of the required information. For
example, some of the current models do not represent the tem-
poral dependence of the various processes, and may only be used
to determine the steady-state gas concentrations in the package.
Such models, though generally useful in the design process, can-
Corresponding author. Present address: Kemptville Campus, University of
Guelph, 830 Prescott Street, Kemptville, ON, Canada K0G 1J0. Tel.: +1 613 258 8336.
E-mail addresses: trennie@kemptvillec.uoguelph.ca,
timothy.rennie@mail.mcgill.ca (T.J. Rennie).
nor the time required for this to happen; moreover, they can-
not incorporate advanced, time-dependent commodity respiration
models. Other models assume that the gas concentrations and
the temperature are uniform throughout the package, as well as
independent of the package geometry. Transpiration and conden-
sation have rarely been included in existing models, despite the
fact that these processes could have signicant effects on the gas
concentrations. Because of possible interactions between different
inuencing factors, an optimization study should consider simulta-
neously all relevant phenomena, rather than examining the effect of
each while disregarding other possible inuences. Recent advances
in mathematical modelling and numerical methods have permit-
ted the solution of complex systems of time-dependent equations
in arbitrary three-dimensional geometries. This approach makes
it possible to predict the variations of all relevant properties as
well as to determine the sensitivity of the solution to the values of
the various parameters. Following sufcient validation, such mod-
els can be used efciently and economically in the exploration of

0925-5214/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.postharvbio.2008.06.012
 T.J. Rennie, S. Tavoularis / Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020 11

advanced packaging designs, which would be difcult or impossi-

Nomenclature ble to analyze and optimize with simplied analytical models or
experimentally.
AR package aspect ratio Though the acceptance of any conceptual design can only
cpc specic heat of commodity (J kg1 K1 ) be based on experimental support, numerical methods have the
da diameter of modelled ambient storage area (m) advantage of being able to expose the effects of certain parameters
dc commodity diameter (m) that are difcult to control in experiments. During experimental
dp diameter of perforation (m) trials, the physical and biological characteristics of a commodity
dpac diameter of package (m) could be affected, among other factors, by respiration rate, size,
EaCO2 activation energy of rate constant RRmCO2 (f) shape, age, ripeness, injuries, and microbial infestations, which
(J mol1 ) may not be under the full control of the researcher. Furthermore,
EaO2 activation energy of rate constant RRmO2 (J mol1 ) accurate time-dependent measurements of the local gas concentra-
H Henrys law constant tions, relative humidity, and temperature are difcult to perform. In
Ha height of modelled ambient storage area (m) numerical simulations, it is easy to maintain each of the many inu-
Hcl height of commodity layer (m) encing factors at the desired level and to examine the combined
Hhs height of headspace (m) effects of different combinations of such levels. The computation
kw thermal conductivity of package wall (J s1 m1 K1 ) of the spatial and temporal variations of all properties of inter-
Ks skin mass transfer coefcient (kg m2 s1 Pa1 ) est by numerical means is also quite straightforward. Packaging
KmCO2 (f) Michaelis constant for fermentative CO2 production experiments to design new packages, especially for produce that
(%) are stored for several months, can be time consuming and costly.
KmO2 Michaelis constant for O2 consumption (%) Numerical analyses can reduce the number of necessary trials to
KmcCO2 Michaelis constant for the competitive CO2 inhibi- optimize the design.
tion of O2 consumption (%) In a companion article (Rennie and Tavoularis, 2009; hereafter to
KmcCO2 (f) Michaelis constant for the competitive inhibition be referred to as Part I), we have presented in detail a mathemat-
of fermentative CO2 production by CO2 (%) ical model, which aspires to account for all important processes in
KmcO2 (f) Michaelis constant for the competitive inhibition of modied atmosphere packaging. In the present Part II, we describe
fermentative CO2 production by O2 (%) the numerical implementation of this mathematical model to pre-
KmuCO2 Michaelis constant for the uncompetitive CO2 inhi- dict the gas concentrations and other properties of interest in a
bition of O2 consumption (%) commodity package for which some experimental data are avail-
ldiff average diffusion length in package (m) able for comparison in the literature. In addition, the present article
lp length or thickness of perforation (m) explores the sensitivity of the predictions to variations in some
lw package wall or lm thickness (m) important parameters.
m mass of commodity (kg)
mw con condensation rate on package wall (kg s1 )
p pressure (Pa) 2. Numerical procedures
p ambient pressure (Pa)
pd pressure, Darcy equation (Pa) The mathematical model described in Part I was imple-
qw heat ux through package wall (J s1 m2 ) mented using COMSOL MultiphysicsTM (version 3.3, COMSOL Inc.,
r coordinate (m) Burlington, MA), a commercial software package which is capa-
RQox respiration quotient ble of solving systems of partial differential equations by the
RRmCO2 maximum CO2 production rate (mol kg1 s1 ) nite element method. This section outlines the implementa-
RRmCO2 (f) maximum fermentative CO2 production rate tion of the mathematical model, including mesh independence
(mol kg1 s1 ) tests and a case study with predictions of various parameters
RRmO2 maximum O2 consumption rate (mol kg1 s1 ) and comparisons with experimental results from the litera-
T gas mixture temperature (K) ture.
Tc commodity temperature (K)
Tref commodity reference temperature (K) 2.1. Computational domain and governing equations
T ambient temperature (K)
u velocity vector from NavierStokes (m s1 ) The computational geometry and specied conditions were not
ud Darcian velocity vector (m s1 ) meant to correspond to any realistic design of a commercial pack-
ui velocity vector of species i (m s1 ) age, but chosen such as to permit computational efciency and
u velocity in r-direction (m s1 ) comparison with the available laboratory experiments realized by
u ambient storage velocity (m s1 ) Silva et al. (1999). The computational domain is axisymmetric. As
v velocity in z-direction (m s1 ) shown in Fig. 1, it consists of four subdomains: the ambient stor-
VPL vapour pressure lowering effect age environment (1 ), the perforation (2 ), the headspace (3 ),
Z coordinate (m) and the commodity layer (4 ). The commodity layer is treated as
a porous medium.
Greek symbols The MaxwellStefan equation was solved in all four subdomains
heat conversion factor to compute the mass fractions of CO2 , H2 O, N2 , and O2 . The velocity
porosity and pressure were calculated by solving Darcys law in the com-
 air density (kg m3 ) modity layer and the NavierStokes equations in the remaining
b bulk density of commodity (kg m3 ) three regions. The energy equation was solved in all regions occu-
i mass fraction of species i pied by uid to determine the gas mixture temperature as well as
mass fraction in ambient storage in the commodity layer to calculate the commodity temperature.
The boundary conditions are listed in Table 1.
12 T.J. Rennie, S. Tavoularis / Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020

The planar generator of the computational domain was t-

ted with an unstructured mesh using triangular elements. Grid
independence studies were conducted by comparing the solutions
achieved using three mesh densities, having, respectively, 665,
1648, and 3810 elements. The coarser mesh is shown in Fig. 2. The
ner meshes were created by rening this mesh through bisection
of the longest edge of each element. Results of the grid inde-
pendence study are discussed in Section 2.3. Lagrange quadratic
shape functions were used for the governing equations of Darcys
law, gas mixture temperature, commodity temperature, and the
MaxwellStefan equation. The NavierStokes equations utilized
second-order Lagrange elements when solving for the velocity
and linear elements when solving for the pressure. The UMFPACK
(version 4.2) solver was selected among the options available in
COMSOL MultiphysicsTM to solve the system of equations. This
solver uses the unsymmetric multifrontal method and direct sparse
LU factorization to obtain a direct solution of unsymmetric sparse
linear systems (Davis, 2004). Computations were conducted on a
personal computer with a 2.40 GHz AMD AthlonTM 64 X2 Dual Core
Processor 4600+ and 2 Gb of RAM. Typical solution times ranged
from 4 h to 8 h, depending largely on the size of the internal time
steps taken by the solver.

2.2. Case study

The numerical implementation of the mathematical model was

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram (not to scale) of the computational domain of the
perforation-mediated modied atmosphere package. 1 : ambient storage environ-
ment; 2 : perforation; 3 : headspace; 4 : commodity layer; i : boundary;
internal boundary between commodity layer and headspace; axial symmetry
line.
tested by comparing the model predictions with the experimental
results of Silva et al. (1999). The experimental work involved modi-
ed atmospheric storage of 1.0 kg of Oso Grande strawberries in a
glass container of volume 0.0038 m3 , equipped with a 0.04-m long
tube with a 0.012-m inner diameter, for 4 d at 7 C. The composi-
tion of the gas mixture surrounding the package was controlled to
have 14.8% O2 and 8.3% CO2 ; consequently, the experimental con-
guration consisted of a modied atmosphere package within a
controlled atmosphere. The conditions used in the numerical case
study matched, as closely as possible, any conditions that were
specied in the experimental study. Unfortunately, because some
geometrical dimensions and operating conditions of the experi-
ment were not readily available, the required specications were
supplemented by plausible values of the missing parameters. This
process introduced an uncertainty in the estimates, in addition to
the uncertainty due to imperfections in the mathematical model
and the numerical solution.
For the numerical case study presented here, the initial con-
centrations of O2 and CO2 in the package were assumed to be 21%
and 0.036%, respectively. These are the standard atmosphere values
and initial concentrations presented by Silva et al. (1999). The initial
ambient gas concentrations were 14.8% for O2 and 8.3% for CO2 . The
levels of the initial relative humidity in the package and the ambi-

Table 1
Boundary conditions

Boundary Governing equations

MaxwellStefan NavierStokes Darcy Energy (T) Energy (Tc )

1 i = p = p T = T
2 i = p = p T = T
3 Impermeable No slip Adiabatic
4 Continuity Continuity Continuity
5 Impermeable No slip Adiabatic
6 Continuity Continuity Continuity
7 Impermeable to CO2 , N2 , O2 ; mw con for H2 O No slip Flux = qw
8 Impermeable to CO2 , N2 , O2 ; mw con for H2 O No slip Flux = qw
9 Continuity u = ud pd = p Continuity Adiabatic
normal N2 ux
10 Impermeable to CO2 , N2 , O2 ; mw con for H2 O u= N Flux = qw Adiabatic
2
normal N2 ux
11 Impermeable to CO2 , N2 , O2 ; mw con for H2 O v= N Flux = qw Adiabatic
2
 T.J. Rennie, S. Tavoularis / Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020 13

Table 2
Commodity properties for strawberries, package dimensions, and storage conditions
used for the case study

Property Value Reference

cpc 3890 J kg1 K1 ASHRAE (1998)

dc 0.03076 m (0.0125 kg berry @ 820 kg m3 ) Talasila et al. (1992)
and Zanderighi (2001)
dp 0.012 m Silva et al. (1999)
EaCO2 57 374 J mol1 Hertog et al. (1999)
EaO2 74 826 J mol1 Hertog et al. (1999)
H 1.346 Renault et al. (1994a)
kw 0.78 J s1 m1 K1 (glass) Holman (1997)
Ks 13.6 109 kg m2 s1 Pa1 ASHRAE (1998)
KmCO2 (f) 1% Hertog et al. (1999)
KmO2 2.63% Hertog et al. (1999)
KmcCO2 + Hertog et al. (1999)
KmcCO2 (f) + Hertog et al. (1999)
KmcO2 (f) 0.056% Hertog et al. (1999)
KmuCO2 + Hertog et al. (1999)
lp 0.040 m Silva et al. (1999)
lw 0.002 m Assumed (no data
available)
m 1.0 kg Silva et al. (1999)
p 101 325 Pa Assumed
RQox 0.91 Hertog et al. (1999)
RRmCO2 (f) 5.0 107 mol kg1 s1 Hertog et al. (1999)
RRmO2 2.7 107 mol kg1 s1 Hertog et al. (1999)
Tref 283.15 K Hertog et al. (1999)
T 280.15 K Silva et al. (1999)
u 0.1 m s1 Rennie et al. (2003)
VPL 0.99 Becker et al. (1996)
0.95 Assumed (no data
available)
0.268 ( = 1600 kg m3 /820 kg m3 ) Zanderighi (2001)
b 600 kg m3 Zanderighi (2001)

between cultivars, and also depends on other factors, such as age,

ripeness, and injuries, the use of reported parameters for the res-
piration rate model could be a signicant source of uncertainty in
the numerical results. Even so, we decided to use data from the lit-
erature, as this is the likely type of information to be used in future
practical applications of the present method. Diffusion coefcients
were taken from Massman (1998). The chosen values of strawberry
properties, taken from various sources, and properties of the pack-
aging material are listed in Table 2. Silva et al. (1999) only provide
the total volume of the package and not the diameter and height of
the container. To proceed, a diameter of dpac = 0.213 m was assumed,
which resulted in a total height of Hhs + Hcl = 0.107 m to match the
specied package volume. Assuming a bulk density of 600 kg m3
for the commodity (Zanderighi, 2001), the volume occupied by 1 kg
of the commodity was set to correspond to Hcl = 0.0467 m, leaving
a height Hhs = 0.0598 m for headspace. For the base case simula-
tions, the ambient storage environment domain was modelled as a
cylinder with both its radius and height equal to the package radius,
i.e., Ha = 1/2da = 1/2dpac , and the values of ambient temperature and
humidity mentioned earlier were applied on the boundaries 1
and 2 (Fig. 1).
Fig. 2. Meshed computational domain with 665 elements.

2.3. Mesh independence

ent relative humidity have not been reported in the experimental
work; both parameters were assumed to be 95%, a typical relative
humidity for the storage of strawberries (Rennie et al., 2003). The
initial temperatures of the gas mixture and the commodity, also not
reported in the experimental work, were both assumed to be at the
ambient storage temperature of the experiment of 7 C. Among the
several models for the respiration rate of strawberries which are
available in the literature, two models were selected: one based on
enzyme kinetics (Hertog et al., 1999) and one based on a best t
empirical model (Talasila et al., 1995). As the respiration rate varies
The results of the mesh independence study are shown in
Table 3. The values of the average O2 and CO2 gas concentrations
in the commodity layer and the average commodity temperature
are tabulated for the numerical output after 1, 3, and 5 d of storage.
Trials were performed at each of the three different mesh densities
and with different maximum time steps. The solver determined the
appropriate time steps throughout the solving procedure, though
the maximum time step was limited to 1000 s or 3600 s for some tri-
als to test the dependency of the results on the time step value. The
14 T.J. Rennie, S. Tavoularis / Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020

Table 3
Results of the mesh independence tests

Mesh O2 concentration (%) CO2 concentration (%) Commodity temperature ( C)

Elements Maximum time step (s) Day 1 Day 3 Day 5 Day 1 Day 3 Day 5 Day 1 Day 3 Day 5

665 Free 10.3 7.2 7.1 8.8 18.0 21.9 7.87 8.40 8.49
665 3600 10.1 7.3 7.1 8.9 18.0 21.9 7.91 8.39 8.48
1648 Free 10.3 7.4 7.0 8.8 17.6 21.5 7.86 8.35 8.47
1648 3600 10.0 7.3 7.0 8.9 17.9 21.7 7.88 8.39 8.48
1648 1000 10.0 7.2 7.0 8.9 18.0 21.8 7.89 8.39 8.48
3810 Free 10.3 7.2 7.0 8.8 18.0 21.8 7.86 8.39 8.48
3810 3600 10.0 7.2 7.0 8.9 17.9 21.7 7.88 8.39 8.48

results indicate (Table 3) that there was little difference between
the three meshes and for the different time-stepping procedures.
For example, the relative difference between the reported min-
imum and maximum concentrations are 1.4% and 1.8%, for O2
and CO2 concentrations, respectively. The difference between the
reported minimum and maximum commodity temperatures was
0.02 C. The 1648 element mesh with a maximum time step of
3600 s was selected as the base mesh for all other trials presented
in this work. This allows for some exibility, as some of these tests
required changing the dimensions of the package. In these cases,
the same procedure for constructing the mesh was used, though
the exact number of elements differed slightly between cases.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Experimental validation of predicted concentrations for the
base case
such differences must be examined by giving due consideration to
the diversity of sources for the physical and biological properties
of the strawberries, the differences between models of respiration
and the overall complexity of the mathematical model.
The differences between predictions using the data of Hertog et
al. (1999) and those of Talasila et al. (1995) clearly demonstrate the
importance of using respiration rate data for the appropriate vari-
ety and, if possible, for similar growing and harvesting conditions.
A closer agreement of one set of predictions with experimental
results should not necessarily be interpreted as evidence that the
corresponding respiration rate model is generally better than the
other. Each model was t to experimental data and the differences
could simply be due to varietal effects and biological variation.
Even so, considering that the Talasila et al. (1995) respiration rate
model resulted in a better agreement with the available experi-
mental results, we have used this model for all further simulations
described in this article.

The numerical model was tested by simulating the conditions
described in Section 2.2. The numerical results were compared with
the experimental results of Silva et al. (1999). As Fig. 3 shows, the
general trends in the evolutions of the O2 and CO2 concentrations
were compatible with both expectations and experimental trends,
however, the differences between the predicted and measured val-
ues were signicant, with the simulations under-predicting the
measured O2 concentrations by 34.9% and over-predicting the CO2
concentrations by 51.6%, after 4 d from the start of the process using
the Hertog et al. (1999) data for strawberries. The model of Talasila
et al. (1995), on the other hand, under-predicted the measured O2
concentrations by 14.4% and over-predicted the CO2 concentrations
by 4.9%, after 4 d from the start of the process. The importance of
3.2. Sensitivity to respiration rate
The sensitivity of the model to the chosen value of the respira-
tion rate was tested by repeating the simulations using the Talasila
et al. (1995) model with +10% and 10% changes in the respiration
rates RRmO2 for O2 consumption and RRmCO2 for CO2 produc-
tion. For the base case, RRmO2 = 3.384 107 mol kg1 s1 and
RRmCO2 = 3.018 107 mol kg1 s1 . Additional simulations were
conducted by replacing these values in Eqs. (3) and (4) in Part I by
3.722 107 and 3.320 107 mol kg1 s1 for the +10% case, and
by 3.046 107 and 2.716 107 mol kg1 s1 for the 10% case, for
O2 and CO2 , respectively. The results of these simulations, shown in
Fig. 4, indicate that this sensitivity was appreciable: for the base res-

Fig. 3. Average headspace gas concentration versus time. O2 concentration and

CO2 concentration resulting from the Hertog et al. (1999) model; - - O2 Fig. 4. Average headspace gas concentration versus time. Solid lines indicate numer-
concentration and - - - - - CO2 concentration resulting from the Talasila et al. (1995) ical results using the original respiration rate data by Talasila et al. (1995); dashed
model;  O2 concentration and  CO2 concentration from the experiments of Silva lines indicate numerical results using 10% of the O2 consumption and CO2 produc-
et al. (1999). tion rates.
 T.J. Rennie, S. Tavoularis / Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020 15

piration rate, the gas concentrations in the package after 4 d were

found to be 9.4% O2 and 14.0% CO2 ; the 10% increase in the res-
piration rate resulted in concentrations of 8.8% O2 and 14.7% CO2 ,
whereas the 10% decrease in the respiration rate resulted in 10.0%
O2 and 13.2% CO2 concentrations. This illustrates the difculty of
precisely predicting gas concentrations due to variations in the res-
piration rate. This has been an issue with other modelling attempts
as well (Montanez et al., 2005; Riad and Brecht, 2002). These vari-
ations can be due to numerous causes, including the physiological
age of the commodity (Nahor et al., 2005), and are problematic
to developing accurate respiration rate models. However, if more
accurate respiration rate models are developed, the accuracy of
predicting gas concentration predictions in the package would be
improved.

3.3. Verication of the assumption of negligible convection

In the model development, the heat transfer at the surface

of the commodity was assumed to occur only by conduction, as
the surrounding uid velocity was assumed to be negligible. Thus
the Sherwood and Nusselt numbers were calculated from Eqs.
(11) and (33) in Part I, assuming that the Reynolds number was
negligible.
For the numerical solution of the base case, the maximum
Reynolds number (based on the interstitial velocity) in the com- Fig. 5. Contours of O2 concentration in the ambient storage area and in a sec-
modity layer after 4 d of storage was 5.9 104 . Assuming that the tion of the perforation. Differences between values at adjacent contours are equal
to 1% of the difference between the maximum and minimum O2 concentrations
gas mixture in this case can be approximated by air at 7 C, the val-
in the package. The dashed line indicates the boundaries of the geometry with
ues of Schmidt and Prandtl numbers would be approximately 0.61 Ha = 1/2da = 1/4dpac .
and 0.71, respectively. Consequently, the estimated Sherwood and
Nusselt numbers would both be about 2.01, which deviates only
slightly from the exact value of 2 for pure conduction. Next, we evaluated the applicability of a much more drastic
modication of the ambient storage environment model, in which
3.4. Modelling the ambient storage environment the ambient boundary conditions were applied on the remote
boundary 4 of the perforation, thus eliminating the ambient
The numerical solution, and particularly gas transport and heat computational domain. This assumption would be appropriate to a
transfer near the storage side of the perforation, would depend on situation in which there is sufcient air movement in the ambient
the assumed geometry of the ambient storage environment and the storage environment to result in negligible resistance to diffusion
corresponding boundary conditions. In the base case of the present near the end of the perforation. A comparison of the predicted
study, the ambient storage environment domain was modelled as a O2 headspace concentrations for the base case and the simplied
cylinder with both its radius and height equal to the package radius. ambient geometry is presented in Fig. 6. After 4 days of stor-
There was little variation of the O2 concentrations in the ambient age, the predicted O2 headspace concentration for the simplied
storage area or in the package, except close to the perforation. The geometry was 9.9%, which is measurably, although not excessively,
greatest part of the change in O2 concentration occurs within the higher than the base-case value of 9.4%. A difference in these val-
perforation. To clearly illustrate the diffusion of O2 near the bound-
aries, Fig. 5 shows contours of O2 concentration in the region of the
perforation and the ambient space. The difference between val-
ues on adjacent contours is equal to 1% of the difference between
the maximum (14.8%) and minimum (9.3%) local concentrations of
O2 in the entire solution domain. It can be seen that about 10% of
concentration change occurred in the ambient storage area. Sim-
ilarly, about 11% of the concentration change occurred within the
package, leaving about 79% of O2 concentration change inside the
perforation.
To evaluate the sensitivity of the solution to the size of the ambi-
ent storage environment considered, simulations were repeated
using a cylindrical ambient domain with height and diameter equal
to half the values used for the base-case (Ha = 1/2da = 1/4dpac ) and
a volume equal to 1/8 of that for the base case. Simulations cor-
responding to 4 d of storage demonstrated that the difference
between the predicted O2 concentration for the base case and that
for the case with the smaller ambient domain was 0.02%. Fig. 5 also
Fig. 6. Average headspace O2 concentration versus time. simulations using an
conrms that essentially all change in O2 concentration occurred
ambient storage environment domain with a width and height of dpac (Fig. 1);
within the reduced ambient volume. This test proves that the size simulations without ambient storage environment; - - - - - simulations with-
of the base-case computational domain for the ambient storage out ambient storage environment, but with the perforation length increased by
environment was adequate for the present purposes. 7/12dp as suggested by Paul and Clarke (2002).
16 T.J. Rennie, S. Tavoularis / Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020

ues was anticipated in accordance with the discussion by Paul

and Clarke (2002), who recommended modelling ambient storage
environment size effects by increasing the modelled perforation
length. Simulations were repeated for the present conditions by
eliminating the ambient computational domain and extending the
perforation by 7/12dp towards the ambient storage environment
side and leaving the commodity side of the perforation unal-
tered. Fig. 6 shows that the resulting O2 headspace concentration
was 9.2%, which is only slightly lower than that in the base case.
Improved agreement can be achieved by ne-tuning of the perfo-
ration tube extension length, but this has not been pursued because
the inclusion of ambient space in the computational domain does
not pose any difculty. It may be further remarked that the Paul
and Clarke (2002) recommendation is based on Ficks st law,
whereas this work uses a more accurate treatment in terms of the
MaxwellStefan equations.

3.5. Effect of package aspect ratio

The aspect ratio AR = (Hhs + Hcl )/dpac of the package used in their
experimental work was not reported by Silva et al. (1999). As
mentioned in Section 2.2, an aspect ratio of 0.5 was assumed. To
determine the aspect ratio effect on the numerical results, addi-
tional simulations were conducted using the values AR = 0.17 and
1.5 and keeping all other variables in the model unchanged. In all
cases, the porous medium occupied the bottom 43.8% of the pack-
age. Differences in predicted O2 headspace concentrations for the
three aspect ratios were found to be small. For example, after 4 d of
storage, this concentration was 9.1% for AR = 0.17, 9.4% for AR = 0.5
and 9.4% for AR = 1.5. An explanation for these differences can be
given by considering that the O2 concentration would decrease
with increasing O2 diffusion path from the perforation to the com-
modity mass. An average diffusion path ldiff can be dened as the
weighted average distance from the respiring commodity to the
intersection of the symmetry axis and boundary 6 (Fig. 1):
  
4
2  r b r 2 + (Hcl + Hhs z)2 dz dr
ldiff = 
4
2  r b dz dr
The values of ldiff were 0.18, 0.11, and 0.11 m for the aspect ratios
of 0.17, 0.5, and 1.5, respectively, in conformity with the explanation
given previously. In summary, the aspect ratio value has some effect
on gas concentrations but not an important one.
It is interesting to note that the ratio of outer surface area to
package volume would increase if the aspect ratio changed towards
either very small (long slim cylinder) or very large (thin disk) values.
As the package surface area to volume ratio is increased, resistance
to conductive heat transfer is decreased. In this work the package
volume was kept constant at 0.0038 m3 . The outer surface areas of
the package for the aspect ratios of 0.17, 0.5, and 1.5, were 0.137,
0.143, and 0.198 m2 , respectively. The differences in the package
surface area to volume ratio had an effect on the average commodity
temperature, with values of 8.4, 7.9, and 7.5 C, for AR = 0.17, 0.5,
and 1.5, respectively. Even though it may be proved that increasing
the package surface to volume ratio would decrease the average
commodity temperature using the present model, full investigation
of the heat transfer is beyond the scope of this article.
3.6. Relative humidity, transpiration, and condensation
The base-case water vapour distribution after 4 d of storage is
shown in Fig. 7. The partial pressure of the water vapour was highest
in the middle of the commodity layer and decreased towards the
sides of the package, where vapour condensation was observed.
Fig. 7. Water vapour pressure (in Pa) after 4 d of storage.
(1)
The gas temperature was also highest in the middle of the com-
modity layer and decreased towards the package wall, as a result of
heat transfer through the wall (Fig. 8). In the commodity layer core,
higher gas mixture temperatures allow for higher water vapour sat-
uration pressures, whereas, on the package walls, relatively low
temperatures result in extensive condensation. After 4 d of storage,
the rate of transpiration was 5.86 109 kg s1 , and the rates of
vapour condensation within the commodity layer and on the pack-
age walls were 3.2 1010 kg s1 (5.5% of the transpiration rate) and
5.55 109 kg s1 (94.7% of the transpiration rate), respectively. In
addition, 1.95 109 kg s1 (0.3% of the transpiration rate) of water
vapour was transported out of the package through the perfora-
tion. The slight imbalance of the transpiration-condensation values
mentioned above could be due to numerical inaccuracy and/or the
fact that after 4 d of storage the gas concentrations had not yet
reached steady-state. The cooling rate due to transpiration was
0.0146 J s1 , whereas the conductive heat transfer from the com-
modity was 0.0283 J s1 , indicating that in the present simulations
both processes were of comparable importance. In their develop-
ment of a mathematical model of modied atmosphere packaging
(MAP) with lms, Talasila et al. (1995) assumed that the heat
transfer from the commodity due to transpiration was negligible
and disregarded it in their model. Song et al. (2002) developed a
mathematical model for MAP with lms with the assumption that
the commodity temperature and gas mixture temperature were
identical, thus eliminating the convective heat transfer from the
commodity and relegating all of the heat transfer to transpiration.
 T.J. Rennie, S. Tavoularis / Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020
Fig. 8. Gas mixture temperature (in C) after 4 d of storage.
Most mathematical models for MAP do not include water vapour
transport or transpiration and condensation. In MAP applications
using permeable lms with no perforations, moisture condensa-
tion on the inner surface of the package can occur due to low water
vapour permeability of the lm (Lee et al., 2000), leading to possi-
ble microbial growth (Fishman et al., 1996). Perforations have been
suggested as a method to alleviate condensation because they facil-
itate water vapour transport (Lee et al., 2000). In order to determine
whether the ambient relative humidity affects the gas concentra-
tion and the transpiration rate inside the package, simulations using
two additional values for the ambient relative humidity, namely
60% and 80%, were performed to allow comparison with the base
case, in which the relative humidity was taken to be 95%. Differ-
ences between the gas concentrations, commodity temperatures,
and transpiration rates for the three cases considered were found
to be negligible, thus proving that the process is insensitive to the
value of ambient relative humidity, at least within the examined
range.
Literature sources provide a wide range of experimentally deter-
mined values for the skin mass transfer coefcient Ks of each com-
modity. The range of values for strawberries reported by ASHRAE
(1998) was from 3.95 109 to 26.5 109 kg m2 s1 Pa1 . The
average value of 13.6 109 kg m2 s1 Pa1 was used as the base
case in this work. Simulations were also performed using the low-
est and highest values in the reported range and the results were
compared to those using the average value. In all three simulations,
the relative humidity surrounding the package was set at the rel-
atively low value of 60% in order to magnify the effect of Ks (for
17
95% ambient relative humidity, the water vapour pressure inside
the package would be close to saturation and the effect of changes
in Ks would not be expected to be as pronounced). It was found
that the value of Ks had a weak effect on the transpiration rate.
After 4 d of storage, the transpiration rate was 5.96 109 kg s1
for Ks = 26.5 109 kg m2 s1 Pa1 and decreased by 8.2% to
5.49 109 kg s1 for Ks = 3.95 109 kg m2 s1 Pa1 . The high rel-
ative humidity within the package limits the transpiration of the
commodity to a degree that the skin resistance and boundary layer
resistance have only a small inuence on the moisture transport.
3.7. CO2 solubility within the commodity
The model developed in Part I included the effect of CO2 solu-
bility within the commodity in a manner similar to the treatment
by Renault et al. (1994a). The latter authors, however, assumed
that the gas concentrations were uniformly distributed through-
out the package, whereas this study accounts for the distribution
of the commodity within the package. Though Renault et al. (1994a)
report that CO2 solubility depends on the commodity temperature,
in the present work this parameter was considered to be indepen-
dent of temperature and the xed value used was based on data
given by Renault et al. (1994a) and corresponded to the ambient
storage conditions. Modication of the model to account for a tem-
perature dependent solubility would be possible, but it was deemed
to be an unnecessary complication, as it would strengthen the cou-
pling between unknown parameters. The solubilities of O2 and N2
in the commodity were neglected, as these gases are known to have
low solubilities in water (Renault et al., 1994a), the main solute in
perishable commodities.
The evolutions of CO2 in the headspace for simulations with
and without CO2 solubility are shown in Fig. 9. The base case
uses the Talasila et al. (1995) respiration rate model. As expected,
the concentration of CO2 in the headspace increased at a slower
rate when the solubility was included in the model, because a
portion of the produced CO2 is retained within the commodity.
This was also observed in the numerical work of Renault et al.
(1994a). For the case with solubility included, the concentration
of N2 in the headspace increased slightly at the beginning of the
storage period and then decreased to a steady-state value (Fig. 10).
This characteristic increase at the beginning has been observed
both experimentally and numerically (Renault et al., 1994a,b) and
is attributed to a signicant difference between the O2 and CO2
transfer rates through the skin surface, as CO2 accumulates in the
commodity during this initial period. This difference in transfer
rates results in a net convective ux into the package, transport-
Fig. 9. Average headspace CO2 concentration versus time. - - - - - simulations with-
out CO2 solubility; simulations with CO2 solubility included.
18 T.J. Rennie, S. Tavoularis / Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020
Fig. 10. Average headspace N2 concentration versus time. - - - - - simulations with-
out CO2 solubility; simulations with CO2 solubility included.
ing CO2 , O2 , and N2 into the package. The simulations without the
CO2 solubility also showed a slight increase at the beginning. This
is due to the difference in the initial concentrations of CO2 between
the ambient storage environment and the package. In this case, CO2
that is initially transported into the package will dissolve into the
water matrix of the commodity, resulting in a lowering of the gas
partial pressure, and hence resulting in a convective ux of gases
into the package. This will continue until equilibrium is reached
between the CO2 in the commodity and in the air surrounding the
commodity.
The O2 concentrations were not affected by the addition of the
CO2 solubility, as the respiration rate of strawberries has been
determined to be independent of CO2 concentration (Hertog et
al., 1999; Talasila et al., 1995). If the commodity being modelled
had a respiration rate that was dependent on CO2 concentrations,
then there would be the possibility that the exclusion or inclusion
of the solubility affects would affect the time dependence of O2
concentration. However, in either case, the inclusion or exclusion
of the CO2 solubility will not affect the nal steady-state gas con-
centrations predicted by the model, as discussed by Renault et al.
(1994a).
3.8. Effect of porosity
The treatment of the commodity layer as a porous media intro-
duces porosity as one of the variables that could have an effect
on the numerical prediction. The value of the porosity is used to
determine the effective thermal conductivity and effective diffu-
sivity coefcients for the gas mixture. Furthermore, the porosity
affects the volume occupied by the commodity in the model. The
base case simulations had a porosity of 0.268, which was calculated
based on the density and bulk density for strawberries reported by
Zanderighi (2001). Simulations were repeated with porosity val-
ues of 0.302 (face-centered cubical packing of spheres) and 0.476
(simple cubical packing of spheres). The results of these simula-
tions indicated that the development of the gas concentrations was
essentially independent of the porosity. The percent difference of
the average headspace O2 concentration between the two extreme
porosities, 0.268 and 0.476, was 0.3%.
3.9. Sensitivity to storage temperature
Temperature uctuations in a storage environment are com-
mon for the storage of fresh commodities. These uctuations are
generally a result of the thermostat-controlled cyclic operation of
the refrigeration system, defrosting cycles, and opening and clos-
ing of storage room doors. Furthermore, the temperature within
a storage room may not be uniform, with areas that receive less
circulation having higher temperatures. In order to determine the
extent of temperature differences on the prediction of package gas
composition, the base-case simulations with an ambient storage
room temperature of 7 C were compared to two additional sim-
ulations, which assumed ambient storage room temperatures of 6
and 8 C, respectively. After 4 d of storage, the average O2 headspace
concentrations for storage at 6, 7, and 8 C, were 9.8, 9.4, and 8.9%,
respectively. Average CO2 headspace concentrations for these tem-
peratures were 13.2, 13.9, and 14.6%, respectively. The constant
O2 decrease and CO2 increase with the increase of temperature is
directly related to the increase of the respiration rate of the horti-
cultural produce accompanying any increase in temperature. This
indicates that a package designed to have the optimal gas com-
position at a certain surrounding storage temperature would have
a slightly suboptimal gas composition at different storage tem-
peratures. Similarly, even small uctuations in temperature could
signicantly effect the gas mixture composition.
An additional simulation was performed in which the temper-
ature dependence of the respiration rate was neglected. This was
achieved by replacing Tc in the Talasila et al. (1995) model with the
constant value of 280.13 K. With this assumption, the average O2
and CO2 headspace concentrations after 4 d of storage were 9.8 and
13.4%, respectively. In some existing models for MAP (Emond et al.,
1991; Ratti et al., 1998; Renault et al., 1994a), the temperature of the
commodity is assumed to be equal to the storage temperature or the
temperature is considered to be uniform throughout the package.
The results mentioned here indicate that such assumptions may
lead to over-prediction of O2 concentration and under-prediction
of CO2 concentration. The error resulting from such assumptions
would also depend on the heat transfer characteristics of the pack-
age.
3.10. Convective and diffusive transport through the perforation
In Section 3.3, the effects of the gas velocity on the heat trans-
fer and mass transfer rates from the commodity were found to be
negligible. However, the imbalance between the O2 consumption
and CO2 production results in a convective ux of chemical species
through the perforation and towards the package. After 4 d of stor-
age, the mass average velocity u of the gas mixture through the
perforation (boundary 6 ) was 7.4 106 m s1 . The O2 diffusion
velocity (uO2 u), where uO2 is the total species velocity of O2 , was
1.85 104 m s1 into the package and the CO2 diffusion velocity
(uCO2 u) was 1.1 104 m s1 out of the package. The convec-
tive transport accounted for 3.8% of the total O2 transport into the
package, with the remaining transport due to diffusion. The inward
convective ux hinders CO2 from diffusing out of the package, with
the result that the total ux of CO2 out of the package is 93.3% of
the diffusive ux. In their study of the storage of cauliower, Ratti
et al. (1998) investigated the convective ux for perforation medi-
ated MAP. For the storage of 2.7 kg of cauliower, they estimated an
average velocity through the perforation of the order of 0.5 m s1 .
Their experiment, however, used a chemical CO2 scrubber inside
the package, which would increase the convective ux through the
perforation, and is not directly comparable to this work. The magni-
tude of the velocity through the perforation in this work is relatively
insignicant compared to gas velocities that would be common
in the vicinity of the package during storage or transportation.
Thus velocities and velocity uctuations near the perforation could
enhance the transport of chemical species through the perforation.
Temperature gradients, due to the cycling of a refrigeration system,
could potentially create buoyancy driven ow that could affect the
 T.J. Rennie, S. Tavoularis / Postharvest Biology and Technology 51 (2009) 1020
transport of chemical species. Such effects would increase the effec-
tive gas exchange through the perforation. Because measurement
of velocities in the perforation and package is extremely difcult,
if not impossible, further numerical investigations are required to
determine whether there would be signicant sensitivity of the gas
exchange rate to the previously mentioned effects.
4. Conclusions of the entire study
In Part I of this work a space-and-time dependent mathematical
model, based primarily on fundamental laws with some empir-
ical relations, was proposed for perforation-mediated MAP. The
model was presented in a general form that could be applied to
perforation-mediated MAP of arbitrary geometries. The transport
of CO2 , H2 O, N2 , and O2 was modelled based on the MaxwellStefan
equations throughout the domain and coupled with the gas mix-
ture velocity, determined by Darcys law in the commodity layer
(modelled as homogenous porous medium) and the NavierStokes
equations in the remaining subdomains. Commodity temperature
and gas mixture temperature were modelled using energy equa-
tions. The consumption of O2 and the production of CO2 due to
respiration, as functions of gas mixture composition and tem-
perature, were distributed throughout the commodity layer. Both
transpiration and condensation were included in the model.
The general objective of Part I was to lay the foundation of a gen-
eral model for perforation-mediated MAP and to identify areas that
need further exploration and development. Modelling the com-
modity layer as a porous medium was required to keep the model
general and to test its feasibility. However, this assumption requires
knowledge of tortuosity, permeability, effective thermal conduc-
tivity and diffusion coefcients, and heat transfer coefcients. Due
to the randomness of the size and shape of fresh commodities, as
well as varied packaging arrangements or random packing arrange-
ments, values for these parameters are not readily available. This
is an area that has been identied as requiring further investiga-
tion for numerical modelling of specic commodities. The model
assumes that the temperature distribution within an individual
commodity is uniform. Simplied analysis proves this assump-
tion to be approximately valid, however, experimental verication
is required. In this work, condensation on the commodity sur-
face and on the package walls is modelled using an empirical
model based on a mass transfer coefcient and a water vapour
pressure difference. Further renement of this approach may be
possible.
In Part II, the system of equations developed in Part I was solved
numerically as a case study and compared to experimental results
from literature. The case study was based on the experimental work
of Silva et al. (1999) on strawberries. Data for the properties of
strawberries were taken from various literature sources.
Signicant differences in the resulting gas composition were
found using two different respiration rate models for strawberries.
These results demonstrated the importance of obtaining accurate
respiration rate data for the given variety and conditions of the
stored commodity. The sensitivity of the model to variations in the
respiration rate for a given respiration rate model were tested by
increasing or decreasing the respiration rate by 10%. These changes
were found to have a signicant effect on the steady-state gas con-
centrations. Such variations in respiration rate occur regularly for
most commodities, which indicates that, in practical situations, one
should not expect to predict precise steady-state gas concentrations
for MAP.
Simulations were performed to determine the effects of mod-
elling the ambient storage room environment rather than applying
the ambient conditions on the boundary of the perforation. It was
found that the O2 concentration in the package was higher when
19
the ambient storage area was not accounted for in the model, which
corresponds to lower resistance to species transport.
Transpiration and condensation, which are often disregarded
in models of MAP, were modelled to gain insight into a process
that is very hard to investigate experimentally, due to the difculty
in accurately measuring local relative humidity and condensation
levels. The results indicated that the majority of the water vapour
that is transpired eventually condenses on the package walls or on
the commodity. The model also indicated that heat removal from
the commodity due to transpiration and conduction were of the
same order of magnitude. Consequently, both mechanisms should
be included in models of MAP.
The solubility of CO2 within the commodity was demonstrated
to inuence strongly the headspace CO2 concentration over time,
but did not have an effect on the steady-state gas concentrations.
This solidies the argument that the solubility should be included
in transient models, but it is not necessary for steady-state models.
The difference between the storage temperature and the com-
modity temperature was predicted to be appreciable. Thus, the
assumption that the product temperature and the storage room
temperature are equivalent, a common in assumption in many
models, could lead to errors in the prediction of the gas concen-
trations.
The numerical model allowed the determination of the con-
vective and diffusive transports of the different species, which are
quantities difcult, if not impossible, to determine experimentally.
The results show that the majority of the transport is diffusive,
though due to differences in the O2 consumption rate, CO2 produc-
tion rate, and the diffusive rates of the different species, a convective
ux was observed. The convective ux accounted for about 3.8% of
the total O2 ux into the package. It is expected that the convective
ux would be more appreciable in packages that contain chemical
CO2 scrubbers.
Overall, the mathematical model developed in Part I and the
solution examples presented in Part II demonstrate the feasibility
of modelling perforation-mediated MAP based primarily on fun-
damental laws that account for all the major transport phenomena
during storage of fresh commodities. There are aspects of the model,
in particular the modelling of condensation and heat transfer in
the porous medium, which could be improved in future work. The
model can be used for steady-state as well as transient analysis of
MAP in a wide variety of circumstances and could prove to be useful
in risk analysis studies.
Acknowledgment
The nancial support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is gratefully acknowledged.
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