Determination of Aroma Volatiles in Mango Fruit Cv. Amrapali as Affected During Storage Under Rapid Control Atmosphere Conditions using Liquid Nitrogen

Green mature “amrapali” mango fruits were stored at 12 ± 0.2°C under rapid controlled atmosphere (RCA) with various combinations of two levels of oxygen (2 or 5%) and 3 levels of carbon dioxide (4, 6 or 8%) to investigate the effect of RCA on the production of aroma volatiles both in the raw fruit and after ripening at 21°C for 5 days. The RCA conditions were established by flushing calculated amounts of liquid nitrogen (LN₂) into the storage chamber. Whole fruit samples were removed from storage at weekly intervals and analysed for volatiles with a headspace purge and trap system. Terpene hydrocarbons were found to be the dominant group for the raw fruits while esters were the major component of the volatiles for the ripe fruit. Production of aroma volatiles on ripening was found to be higher in the freshly harvested fruit, with lower level of O₂ and elevated level of CO₂ inhibiting production of volatiles especially for hydrocarbons and esters. Mathematical equations using polynomial regression were found to closely predict the values of total aroma volatile classes. The RCA stored ripened fruits were found to be sensorily acceptable, even though it scored lower compared to control fruits, the difference was not significant.

With the process of storage time, mango losses its colour, flovour, rigidity etc.Rapid control atmosphere storage system using liquid nitrogen help in keeping these physicochemical properties in a better way compared to normal storage.