UVC lighting for prolonging the shelf life of mangoes and oranges

This paper presents a study on the use of UVC-LED illumination to assess the effectiveness of UVC treatment in extending the shelf life of fruits such as mangoes and oranges. For mangoes, we examined two distinct groups with different initial conditions: one with almost no visible infection and another showing slight infection symptoms. Our results indicate that UVC treatment was effective for mangoes with no visible infection prior to treatment. To further investigate UVC penetration, we measured the transmittance of UVC light through mango black spots of varying thicknesses. Based on these measurements, we developed an optical model of mango black spots—marking, to our knowledge, the first time a UVC model has been constructed for this purpose. For orange treatment, we designed an adaptive lighting system to illuminate a matrix of oranges, enhancing both throughput and effectiveness.