The combined effect of active packaging and relative phase sweeping on microwave heating performance in a dual-port solid-state system

Abstract

The combined effect of active shielding packaging and relative phase sweeping on heating performance in a dual-port solid-state microwave heating process was evaluated. Four types of heating strategies that combine two factors (passive and active packaging and fixed and sweeping relative phase) were used in heating a tray of 300 g gellan gel sample for 3 min. The temperature distributions at the top and middle layers of the heated samples were collected and analyzed for heating uniformity index (HUI) and power absorption efficiency (PAE). The results showed that both active shielding package and relative phase sweeping can individually improve the HUI while maintaining high PAE. The packaging factor and relative phase factor showed a significant interaction effect (p = 0.0021) in influencing HUI but not PAE, highlighting the necessity of considering both factors (packaging and relative phase) when optimizing the microwave heating uniformity. The combination of active packaging and sweeping relative phase is a robust heating strategy that delivers the best heating performance that is significantly better than or similar to other combinations of packaging and relative phase strategies.

Keywords:

• Solid-state
• heating uniformity
• relative phase sweeping
• active packaging
• factor interaction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data will be made available on request.

Additional information

Funding

This study is based on research that the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station supported with funding from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch Multistate Research capacity funding program [Accession Number 1023982] and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture AFRI project [Grant No: 2021-67017-33444].