Enhancing Food Processing by Pulsed and High Voltage Electric Fields: Principles and Applications

ABSTRACT

Improvements in living standards result in a growing demand for food with high quality attributes including freshness, nutrition and safety. However, current industrial processing methods rely on traditional thermal and chemical methods, such as sterilization and solvent extraction, which could induce negative effects on food quality and safety. The electric fields (EFs) involving pulsed electric fields (PEFs) and high voltage electric fields (HVEFs) have been studied and developed for assisting and enhancing various food processes. In this review, the principles and applications of pulsed and high voltage electric fields are described in details for a range of food processes, including microbial inactivation, component extraction, and winemaking, thawing and drying, freezing and enzymatic inactivation. Moreover, the advantages and limitations of electric field related technologies are discussed to foresee future developments in the food industry.

This review demonstrates that electric field technology has a great potential to enhance food processing by supplementing or replacing the conventional methods employed in different food manufacturing processes. Successful industrial applications of electric field treatments have been achieved in some areas such as microbial inactivation and extraction. However, investigations of HVEFs are still in an early stage and translating the technology into industrial applications need further research efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Electric fields
• polarization
• PEF
• HVEF
• mass transfer
• food processing

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFD0400404) for its support. This research was also supported by the Collaborative Innovation Major Special Projects of Guangzhou City (201604020007, 201604020057), the Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Plan Projects (2015A020209016, 2016A040403040), the National Key Technologies R&D Program (2015BAD19B03), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2017A030310558), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M612672), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2017MS067, 2017MS075), the Agricultural Development and Rural Work of Guangdong Province (2017LM4173), the S&T Project of Guangdong Province (2017B020207002), the Pearl River S&T Nova Program of Guangzhou (201610010104), the International and Hong Kong – Macau – Taiwan Collaborative Innovation Platform of Guangdong Province on Intelligent Food Quality Control and Process Technology & Equipment (2015KGJHZ001), the Guangdong Provincial R & D Centre for the Modern Agricultural Industry on Non-destructive Detection and Intensive Processing of Agricultural Products, the Common Technical Innovation Team of Guangdong Province on Preservation and Logistics of Agricultural Products (2016LM2154) and the Innovation Centre of Guangdong Province for Modern Agricultural Science and Technology on Intelligent Sensing and Precision Control of Agricultural Product Qualities.