Ambient oxygen ingress rate method - An alternative method to ox-tron for measuring oxygen transmission rate of whole packages

The ambient oxygen ingress rate method (AOIR) is an alternative method to O xTran for measuring the oxygen transmission rates (OTR) of whole packages. The objective of the present work was (a) to compare OTR values obtained by the two methods, and (b) to evaluate the use of the AOIR method for measur ing OTR at realistic food storage temperatures and humidity levels. The AOI R method gave equal OTR values compared to the Ox-Tuan method for the five different types of whole packages used in the experiment, with OTR values i n the range 0.06-1.48 mi O-2/day. The repeatability of the AOIR method meas ured on an HDPE bottle was +/-2.6% of the measured value in this experiment . This is slightly higher than the general specifications of the Ox-Tran me thod (1% of reading for packages). However, the AOIR method can be consider ed to be a reliable, precise and cheap alternative method to the Ox-Trait m ethod for measuring OTR of whole packages. The capacity of the method is al so high. The AOIR method showed satisfactory results when comparing OTR for packages tested under realistic food storage conditions covering 23 degree sC/50% relative humidity (RH) and at 4 degreesC/60% RH on the outside, comb ined with water (100% RH) or dry air inside the packages. Copyright (C) 200 0 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.