The need to maintain high levels of safety that narrow the possibilities of contamination by development and appearance of pathogens in the agri-food industry, leads to the constant improvement and design of different mechanisms for locative disinfectant treatments or as chemical preservatives.
In any case, the current trend in the world is that of clean, ecological, chemical-free and environmentally friendly products or processes. Regarding the disinfection of environments and surfaces, smoke treatments are an excellent alternative since they do not require water or generate residual broths, in addition to not requiring personnel.
Among other benefits, the use of fumigens ensures correct treatment since it does not require personnel, which omits the possibilities of generating an incorrect application. The process only requires calculating the number of cans in relation to the volume to be treated, switched on, closed and the treatment is carried out by itself.
Smoke treatment is basically the sublimation of a powder, inside a canister, to a smoke that spreads easily through all the spaces to be treated. The activation of this sublimation is carried out with an initial fire in an ignition wick, then the boat is fully sublimated autonomously. Given its practical and easy way of use, this method is widely used in agri-food facilities, including fresh fruit and vegetable packaging or processors, since it allows to locate each boat in the storage rooms, maturing rooms, trailers or in general in the packing rooms.
The active ingredient of the fumigen, imposes the objective of use, that is, there are ingredients for disinfection (control of bacteria, fungi) and others such as insecticides. In any case, the tendency is for them to be organic, natural, coming from vegetable extracts with functional properties, without introducing toxicity risks.
At POST HARVEST SOLUTIONS, we have smoke agents that incorporate natural ingredients for the control of bacteria and fungi as a disinfectant treatment for spaces. AIRFUM NATUR, whose components are glycolic acid and oregano extract, is a natural, smoke-free option to maintain safety in agri-food production facilities.