Ethylene Converter

An ethylene converter is a machine that eliminates ethylene gas from the air. Ethylene gas is made by some fruits and vegetables and can make them ripen and age faster. Ethylene converters are needed for the storage of kiwifruit or similar fruits sensitive to ethylene (C2H4). Ethylene converters use a catalyst to split the ethylene molecules into carbon dioxide and water. They burn ethylene by heating the air to high temperatures through special cartridges, and after the air is purified from ethylene (now converted into CO2) ethylene converter sends the air back into the storage room, after the outlet temperature of the air is close to the temperature in the storage room. Then, the excess of CO2 in the air is easily removed from the storage room by CO2 Scrubbers.

Unknown facts about Ethylene Converters and Ethylene Analyzers

The most important thing to consider about Ethylene Converters is whether it is required in the system in the first place. Necessity arises only in products that are extremely sensitive to ethylene, such as kiwifruit.

The second important issue is the measurability of the system. Accurate measurement of ethylene is more important than its combustion. Here, the sensitivity of the ethylene analyzer, the measurement of C2H4 gas in PPM or PPB, the quality of the device (price – as a determining factor) are very important.

The most ignored issue about ethylene analyzers is that some other gases produced from fruit respiration, especially CO2 gas, which is a part of the atmosphere in storage, can be misread as ethylene. These measurements may mislead a customer to purchase analyzers and ethylene converters when most of the time they are not needed.

There is absolutely no need for Ethylene Converters in the storage of products such as apples, pears, pomegranates, etc. even though some producers try to include them in the projects due to some commercial concerns. The only important gases to analise and keep under control in the long-term storage of these products are the levels of O2 and CO2. If to measure ethylene level in these storages, although its level is not overly important, the CO2  gas is often misread for ethylene.

Facilities where Ethylene Converters are installed are also different in design. Using only ethylene burners without a proper design of the storage will not provide you a 100% result.

Information on required capacity is usually provided to the market by the manufacturers only in catalogs. However, the comparison of ethylene converters should be directly proportional to the energy consumption of the fans and heaters in general. In Turkey and other CIS countries, where clear information on controlled atmosphere is not easily available, some producers might mislead the project investors by designing a larger number of devices with insufficient capacity. It both presents the project cheaper in terms of price and seems to give a larger number of equipment. Investors might be deceived at the decision stage by artificially created competition in a product that is not even needed, and as a result, get a project with the equipment that is not necessary to have, of inadequate capacity or incompatible with the facility design.

Our OXYCAT team with our experience and expertise in the area of controlled atmosphere systems and ethylene management will provide all kinds of support from consultancy to after-sales services. We will provide you all the information needed on any critical points in the design of your projects with Ethylene Converters and answer any questions, such as:

• Is an ethylene converter necessary for the product to be stored or not?
• If necessary, what kind of capacity is needed?
• Do the projected converters really meet the capacity?
• Is the facility design suitable for ethylene converter? Etc.