Development of an analyser to determine the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the head-space of packages

✍ Scribed by Maria do Carmo Hespanhol da Silva; Claire Isabel Grígoli de Luca Sarantópoulos; Newton Pimenta; Celio Pasquini

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 149 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0894-3214
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1522(199911/12)12:6<271::aid-pts484>3.0.co;2-k

✦ Synopsis

This paper describes the development of an analyser intended to measure the concentrations of CO 2 and O 2 present as part of the gas mixture in the head-space of food packages. The ef®ciency of the measuring device was evaluated by analysing the atmosphere of packages containing the following food products: grated Parmesan cheese, milk powder and fresh pasta. A comparison between the results of the analysis performed with the newly developed analyser and those obtained by gas chromatography showed good correlation between the two methods. The O 2 and CO 2 analyser presented satisfactory accuracy (absolute error smaller than 2.5%, v/v) and precision (relative standard deviation varying from 0.2% to 8.5%). In addition, ®nal results of the levels of both gas types present in the atmosphere submitted to analysis are obtained after about 2 min. The proposed analyser constitutes an alternative solution for the analysis of gases present in the head-space of packages, especially when gas samples of very small volumesÐabout 200 mlÐare to be used.