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An online monitoring of environmental and inherent product parameters is required during transportation and storage of fruit and vegetables to avoid quality degradation and spoilage. The control of transpiration losses is suggested as an indicator for fruit freshness by humidity measurements. For that purpose, an electronic sensor is surrounded by a wet porous fiber material which is in contact with the outer atmosphere. Transpiration reduces the water content of the porous material and thus also the internal water activity. The sensor system, known as 'artificial fruit,' measures the relative humidity and temperature inside the wet material. Humidity and temperature data are collected and transmitted on demand by a miniaturized radio communication unit. The decrease in the measured relative humidity has been calibrated against the mass loss of tomatoes under different external influencing parameters such as temperature, humidity, and air flow. Current battery life allows the sensor system, embedded in a fruit crate, to transmit data on transpiration losses via radio transmission for up to two weeks.
Moisture content and water activity are important parameters of product characterization; thus, an exact determination is necessarily required in a wide range of industrial applications. Moisture content of materials is the content of non-chemically bound water in a solid or liquid. Water activity (aW) is a characteristic/parameter of the non-chemically bound ("free") water in materials and is measured as humidity over a solid/liquid surface at constant temperature (equilibrium moisture content). It is an important parameter to characterize the quality of pharmaceutical and food products. In our contribution, we present a developed device for staged determination of water activity and moisture content of liquid and solid materials.
Moisture content and water activity are important parameters for quality characterization of products like bulk materials, powders, granules. Thus, an exact determination is necessarily required in a wide range of industrial applications. Moisture of materials is the content of non-chemically bound water in a solid or liquid. Water activity (aW) is a characteristic/parameter of the non-chemically bound ("free") water in materials and is measured as humidity over a solid/liquid surface at constant temperature (equilibrium moisture content). It is an important parameter to characterize the quality of e. g. pharmaceutical and food products. In our contribution, we present the developed MOISHUM device for staged determination of water activity and moisture content of liquid and solid materials.