| 摘要 |
The hypobaric preservation of respiring plant matter without the step of humidifying the storage atmosphere by contacting it with a supplementary body of heated water is hereby disclosed, characterized by storage at controlled and correlated conditions of temperature, subatmospheric pressure, evacuation rate, air recirculation rate and air intake rate, and by the dependence of each set of correlated conditions upon the weight, respiration rate and type of plant matter. Expanded relatively dry atmospheric air is passed into and humid rarified air is withdrawn from the storage chamber at rates which maintain an optimal steady-state oxygen partial pressure for each type of respiring, oxygen-consuming plant matter, and a nearly saturated relative humidity sufficient to keep the temperature of the respiring, heat producing plant matter equal to or slightly higher than the temperature of the chamber walls and rarified air. The evacuation rate is adjusted to exhaust less saturated steam from the cargo chamber than the amount released from the plant matter responsive to its respiratory heat, and the recirculation rate is controlled to mix at least 25 volumes of cool, saturated chamber air with each incoming volume of expanded dry atmospheric air before the incoming dry air is permitted to contact the stored plant matter. The preferred recirculation means, a jet-type Venturi air mover powered by the incoming atmospheric air, automatically adjusts the recirculation rate to a proper volumetric displacement responsive and correlated to the amount of expanded dry atmospheric air which enters the storage chamber.
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