EVALUATION OF A HIGH-PRESSURE WATER SCRUBBER FOR CONTROLLED-ATMOSPHERE STORAGE

A high pressure water scrubber was built and tested for gas compositio ns normally encountered in controlled atmosphere storage for fruits an d vegetables. The results obtained demonstrated the efficiency of the scrubber to remove CO2 A model was developed to determine the theoreti cal performance of the scrubber and allow the evaluation of its effici ency by comparing the measured performance to the theoretical result. A regression model was developed to predict the efficiency of the scru bber. The efficiency of the system in dissolving CO2 and N-2 gases was acceptable; however it was poor for O-2.