Radio frequency heating for high-quality processing of fluid and semi-fluid foods

Over the last decade, radio frequency (RF) treatment has been studied extensively in food processing, offering notable advantages over conventional heat treatments for different forms of food due to its non-contact, deep heat penetration, and rapid and volumetric heating characteristics. Although prior reviews have addressed RF processing for various food forms, such as disinfestation of food grains and pasteurization of food powder, most focused on solid or powdered foods. Currently, no systematic review exists on RF processing of fluid and semi-fluid food products.

In a new study published in the KeAi journal Food Physics, a team of researchers from China and the US discussed the applications of RF in processing fluid and semi-fluid food products, focusing on microbial inactivation, acceleration of biochemical reactions and extraction of compounds.

“Through this review, we found that most research focused on the area of batch processing – RF treatment was shown to have relatively faster heating rate and better treatment results,” shares lead author Hao Zhang.

The researchers also looked at heating uniformity and specialized devices for RF treatment of fluid and semi-fluid foods to obtain a good reference value for RF treatment of fluid and semi-fluid samples.

“Although RF heating has been widely used for fluid and semifluid food processing studies in recent years, much work remains to be done in this field to achieve large-scale application in the food industry,” adds Zhang. “We hope that the results of our review can provide specific research directions and references for future studies in this topic to improve the application of this technology.”

###

Contact the author: Bo Ling, Northwest A&F University, College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China, Email address: 6lb6lb@nwsuaf.edu.cn

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 190 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).