Testing the Physical Properties and Application of a Multi-Adsorber Made from Rice Husk to Delay the Ripening of Bananas

Abstract

Climacteric fruit is a horticultural product that is easily damaged due to high levels of respiration and ethylene production during the ripening process. Water vapor during the fruit storage process can damage the quality of the fruit, causing the fruit to rot quickly, so the presence of ethylene gas and water vapor needs to be controlled to extend the shelf life of the fruit. Effort that can be made to control ethylene gas and water vapor is to use active packaging technology. Generally, active packaging to absorb water vapor uses drying materials such as silica gel and calcium chloride (CaCl2). Calcium chloride has hygroscopic properties, but has an unstable pore structure. Based on this, an active ingredient is needed that is able to oxidize ethylene properly, such as potassium permanganate (KMnO4). The use of a matrix is deemed necessary to overcome the shortcomings of these two chemicals due to the toxic nature of KMnO4. The aim of this research was to obtain physical properties and measure the effectiveness of using the CaCl2-KMnO4 multiadsorbent in storing climacteric fruit. The research results showed that the use of this multiadsorber was able to delay climacteric fruit maturity for 8 days at room temperature.