Combined Effects of Radiative and Evaporative Cooling on Fruit Preservation under Solar Radiation: Sunburn Resistance and Temperature Stabilization

Abstract

Excessive solar radiation and high temperature often cause considerable loss and waste of fruits during transportation, retail, and storage. In the current study, a natural deep eutectic solvent-based polyacrylamide/poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel with nanoparticles (NPs/NADES@PAAm/PVA) is developed for fruit quality protection from solar radiation and high-temperature stress by achieving the combined effect of radiative and evaporative cooling. NPs/NADES@PAAm/PVA presents an average solar reflectance of ∼0.89 and an average emittance at the atmospheric window of ∼0.90. Besides, NPs/NADES@PAAm/PVA possesses excellent flexibility, robust mechanical strength, and good swelling behavior. The fruit preservation experiments under sunlight demonstrate that the pear (Pyrus sinkiangensis) treated with NPs/NADES@PAAm/PVA can achieve an average temperature decrease of ∼15.3 °C after sun exposure compared with the blank, and its quality-related attributes, including color, total soluble solid, relative conductivity, and respiration rate, are similar to the fresh one. Multivariate data analyses, including principal component analysis and cluster analysis, further verify that the pear treated with NPs/NADES@PAAm/PVA possesses similar quality to the fresh one after sun exposure. Thus, NPs/NADES@PAAm/PVA has promising prospects for fruit transportation, retail, and storage under solar radiation in a low-operation-cost and sustainable manner.