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Ethylene

Introduction

Ethylene (IUPAC name: ethene) is a hydrocarbon which has the formula C2H4 or H2C=CH2. It is a colourless flammable gas with a faint "sweet and musky" odour when pure. It is the simplest alkene (a hydrocarbon with carbon-carbon double bonds).

Ethylene is widely used in the chemical industry, and its worldwide production (over 150 million tonnes in 2016) exceeds that of any other organic compound. Much of this production goes toward polyethylene, a widely used plastic containing polymer chains of ethylene units in various chain lengths. Ethylene is also an important natural plant hormone and is used in agriculture to force the ripening of fruits. The hydrate of ethylene is ethanol.

  • Specifications For Ethylene
    SPECIFICATIONS :
    • Grade : 99.95%
                    CGA 350, Brass
    • Valve outlet : Brass
    • Cylinder size : 50L, Steel

    Component

    Specification

    ETHYLENE (C2H4)

    99.95%

    C2H2

    < 5.0 ppmv

    OXYGEN

    < 2 ppmv

    CARBON MONOXIDE

    < 2 ppmv

    CARBON DIOXIDE

    < 5 ppmv

    THC (C3)

    < 20 ppmv

    CH4+C2H6

    < 400 ppmv

    MOISTURE

    < 5 ppmv

    HYDROGEN

    < 5 ppmv

    S

    < 0.5 ppmv

    CH3OH

    < 3.0 ppmv



Some More Information

  • At present, cold rooms or cold stores are being used in India as ripening rooms, with ethylene being injected from ethylene cylinders or through ethylene generators. These are faulty methods of ripening and do not achieve desirable results on our fruits for the reason that neither air distribution, nor ethylene distribution is uniform, not to say much about temperature, humidity, Carbon Dioxide control , resulting in poorer quality of ripe fruits and with short shelf life. The concentration of ethylene in cold rooms/cold stores could go up to 1000 ppm, which wipes out quality output. Besides the product loss being higher than 5% in cold rooms/cold stores, the power consumption is also much higher, since more volume is unnecessarily cooled and additional fans, humidifier, etc., are needed. A cold store/cold room does not have the required quantity of air, thus they use pedestal or ceiling fans, which are hardly of any use. Generally, in a cold storage cooler, the air quantity is not more than 400 cu.ft..per minute per ton of refrigeration load.
  • The volume of cold rooms or cold stores could not be specified since somewhere large cold chambers are indulging in ripening of fruits with fruits placed in small portion of cold store and the rest remaining empty. Therefore, in a cold store the inside volume may be 11 or even 20 cubic meters per ton depending upon the size of a cold chamber and fruits loaded for ripening.
  • India has been historically a country with imperfection in any technology, from pin to plane, and the major drive is not to forge ahead from the place the technology has reached elsewhere, but to begin from the beginning with the sole motive to defeat any applicable law or to drive profits without care of quality. Thus, copycat or make do/rag tag systems of banana ripening are being promoted and used to defeat provisions of Food Safety Law enacted recently. Moreover, no thought is given for other fruits like mangoes, papayas, pears, apricots,oranges lemons guavavas pineapples,plums,avacados,kiwis etc., which are still being ripened with chemicals,each of which needs different handling,processing practices and parameters for their ripening.
  • In the end, it is concluded that the volume of 11 cu.m/ton is not the standard volume in pressurized ripening rooms, but for rooms loaded with pallets, it is 9 cu.m per ton and it is 8.5 cu.m/ton if fruits are loaded in plastic crates or boxes and any excess area in pressurized rooms will need more power ,more refrigeration and affects performance..
  • It is important to mention that the following News item appeared in a Global Fresh Produce Journal, which elaborates ill effects of uncontrolled ethylene in cold stores since concentration of ethylene in certain pockets cannot be controlled in cold stores/cold rooms and this erodes quality of fruits.


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