3-5 |
Pulsed electric field processing |
Q. H. ZHANG, Dept. of Food Science & Technology, Ohio State Univ, 2015 Fyffe Ct., Rm. 110, Columbus, OH 43210 Pulsed electric field (PEF) processing is under development from laboratory scale, pilot plant scale to production scale. Engineering approaches that leads to practical implementation are outlined. Focus of PEF as a pasteurization process was on high acid liquid foods. PEF processed orange juice, apple juice and tomato juice demonstrated superior quality than those thermally pasteurized. Microbial inactivation studies with three scales validate the ability of PEF process to scale up. With improved quality, PEF process cost is very close to that of thermal processing. With optimizations in the system hardware and operation conditions, PEF process is likely to be less expensive than thermal processing. Implementation of PEF in fruit and vegetable juice pasteurization is now feasible. Processing of foods with particles or high viscosity will require special considerations.
Session 3, Impact of non-thermal processing technologies on food quality
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