Enhanced microwave assisted processing of 2D cylindrical porous food dielectric

Abstract

[EN] The importance of microwave assisted thermal processing for the food industry relies on the fact of the procedure being economical and swift along with ensuring high quality product. The sample has been assumed as a porous solid food with meat being the continuous phase and oil or water being the dispersed phase. The resultant matrix of meat-oil or meat-water is considered to be a 2D cylinder being subjected to microwave irradiation in two different interaction schemes i.e. lateral and radial. The thermal effect of the interaction is calculated by applying Galerkin finite element analysis to simultaneously solve the Maxwell's equation and heat transfer equation using pertinent boundary conditions. The preliminary solution gives the value of average power absorption at different sample sizes which exhibit few peak points depicting enhanced heating and power absorption. Further study consists of analyzing the spatial distribution of power and temperature along with the transient temperature difference and mean temperature evolution within the sample corresponding to designated observation points. The heating strategy exhibiting high heating rate and low thermal nonuniformity is recommended as the preferred optimum condition. For both meat-oil and meatwater porous solids, the radial irradiation is recommended as the optimal heating strategy corresponding to smaller sample diameter (OP: 1) whereas lateral irradiation is recommended for larger sample diameter (OP: 2). Overall the present work serves as a guide for enhanced microwave assisted heating of porous food samples in the shape of 2D cylinders.