Full text
| |
| Author(s): |
Daniela de Freitas Borghi
Total Authors: 1
|
| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Química |
| Defense date: | 2008-10-10 |
| Examining board members: |
Reginaldo Guirardello;
Jorge Andrey Wilhelms Gut;
Theo Guenter Kieckbusch
|
| Advisor: | Lúcio Cardozo Filho; Reginaldo Guirardello |
| Abstract | |
The main objective of this study is to minimize the high losses of fruits and vegetables that occur during their storage in markets, using a mathematical model to optimize the distribution of the products in deposit and to minimize the costs relating to its storage. For that, data from literature of keeping quality of products studied (celery, lettuce, leek, plum, beetroot, onion, carrot, chicory, cauliflower, spinach, papaya, strawberry, turnip, cucumber, peach, pepper, radish, parsley, tomato and grape) were used. The mathematical model developed used a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation. The model was implemented in the software GAMSand the solver used was CPLEX. Simulations were conducted considering various temperatures of storage and acquisition prices for products, aiming to minimize the costs relating to its storage. It was possible to carry out an analysis on keeping quality of each product depending on the temperature. The results showed that the more distant the real storage temperature of a product is of its ideal temperature, the greater the costs with the loss of quality of this product. It was verified that the cost relating to the loss of quality of products has great influence on the total storage cost, what shows the importance of optimizing the storage logistics of these products, so that these costs are not still more expressive. Thus, the proposed model presents itself as a tool that can help the managers of supermarkets in the decision-making concerning the storage of fruits and vegetables in order to minimize costs and losses in the sector. In addition, experiments were performed with tomatoes of the group cherry, which were analysed firmness, pH, soluble solids and titratable acidity of fruit with and without superficial application of carnauba wax, stored in cold chambers, in four different temperatures (5±1 °C, 10±1 °C, 15±1 °C and 23±3 °C) for a period of eleven days. It was observed that the application of wax, did not improved post-harvest preservation of tomatoes, and was not verified statistical differences at the level of 5% of significance in fruits with and without application of wax. The analysed storage temperature also had not statistically influenced the attributes of quality of tomato. (AU) | |