A separate place in Aircool Co activity, manufacturer and supplier of industrial refrigerating equipment, is devoted to development of a such direction as banana ripening rooms. According to the Customer’s inquiry, engineers of Aircool Co work out a project, including refrigerating, technological equipment and control algorithm. They make calculations and select necessary equipment, namely walling (sandwich-panels), refrigerating equipment (compressors, condensers, evaporators, pipeline), ventilation, manufacture equipment, work out operating algorithm of technological schemes and produce control boxes, assemble and fulfill start-adjusting works, train Customer’s personnel. Aircool Co provides guarantee services and maintenance to the Customer.

World-wide used banana ripening rooms differs from each other with many parameters. But every room correspond to one of the following three types, different with the air flow direction in regard to the boxes with bananas.

At the present moment Aircool Co widely uses the equipment of Holland company “Interko’ and Czech company “Aseko” for these types of rooms.

The rooms of the first generation are distinguished by a special way of boxes loading, which demands much manual labour. Air is circulating around boxes in the room, which results in maximal difference of banana pulp temperature from 3 to 4°С. The ripening process is controlled by the operator manually, who should constantly monitor the bananas condition and change climatic conditions in the room in time.

Pallets with banana boxes are put in two rows closely to each other, which helps to reduce manual labour employed, prevent wide range of temperature in banana pulp and increase storage time of yellow bananas in rooms of the second generation (Del Monte). Interpallet space is separated from other volume of the room with airproof material. The cooled air goes from air cooler in the space above rows of pallets. Due to usage of extraction fan, installed in the center of false wall under an air cooler, discharge is formed in interpallet space, thus the air comes through boxes. Speed and quantity of penetrated air is bigger for the boxes, located nearer to extraction fan. This factor determines that maximal difference of pulp temperature may come to 1°С – 1.5°С. The ripening process can be fully automated with the processor PROBA 50 or PROBA 110, the last allows network connection for monitoring from the PC.

Rooms of the third generation (Chiquita) were worked out for providence of similar conditions of banana cooling along the room. In contrast to the second generation rooms air coolers are located along the whole length of the room above interpallet space. Air, coming through air cooler, is thrown in space between pallets and room wall. Air passage under pallets is blocked with concrete impingement along walls, and above pallets – special air bags, falling ceiling, false-ceiling and curtains. The curtains are distinguished by absence of moving parts and easiness during mounting. Maximal difference of pulp temperature in different points does not exceed 0.5°С. Regulation and control of ripening is fully automated. Connection to the network allows to control pulp temperature in different points of the room, maintain the set ethylene concentration, switch on ventilation with the set interval and length and regulate many other processes. It is possible to get any necessary information about any process in every room (banana color, output time of the ripened bananas, volume of the ripened batch and many others), Rooms of the third generation, installed by Aircool Co, provide more equal ripening. Monitor system allows transmitting on-line data from the site to remote control of an operator and in 24-hours service distantly. Microprocessor regulation of compressor operation ensures optimal operation mode of the refrigerating unit, equal operating time of each compressor, which increases reliability and working life of equipment and reduces maintenance expenses.

Among big projects on equipping of banana ripening rooms the following are distinguished: “JFC-Krasnodar”, “JFC-Ekaterinburg” and “Kora-Armavir”. In 2004 in Ekaterinburg three rooms of the third generation were installed with the control system of ethylene supply and humidity in the room, 48.5 ton volume each. “JFC-Krasnodar” is 18 banana ripening rooms, 9 of which are 46 ton each and the others are 23 ton each, equipped with the tightening bags for directed air flow. For “Kora-Armavir” 4 rooms of the second generation are installed, 17 ton each.

Engineers of Aircool Co are ready to select and calculate necessary equipment according to the Customer’s requirements, and also propose different ways of automatic control.

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