Steam Sterilization Time of Stacked Radiata Pine Packaging Material

Abstract

Radiata pine wood packaging needs to be sterilized according to international phytosanitary standards. In this work the heat sterilization time of green radiata pine packaging material stacked without separators was studied on an industrial scale, considering as variable factors the steam temperature (80, 90 and 100) °C, the thickness of the wood (16, 38 and 53) mm and the height of the wood pile (150, 200 and 400) mm. The pilot experiment was conducted in a 40 m3industrial oven. Subsequently the experiment was scaled to 100 m3ovens. The results showed that the heat sterilization time in the analyzed temperature range depends significantly on the thickness and height of the stack. The minimum time to obtain heat sterilization conditions of radiata pine packaging material varied from 123 min to a maximum of 2275 min.