Developments of mathematical models for simulating vacuum cooling processes for food products – a review

Abstract

Vacuum cooling is a rapid cooling method widely used in cooling some food products. Simulating the vacuum cooling process with mathematical models helps to acquire a more intuitive understanding and optimize the whole cooling process. However, there is no review summarizing the mathematical models of vacuum cooling. In this review, heat and mass transfer process during vacuum cooling, types of mathematical models for vacuum cooling, and numerical methods including finite difference method, finite element method and finite volume method used for process simulation are introduced in details. The food products used in numerical simulation study of vacuum cooling generally include liquid food, vegetables and cooked meat. The ranges of application of various numerical methods are also discussed. Moreover, heat and mass transfer coefficients have a great influence on the accuracy of the model, and are generally provided by the literature. The investigations presented in this review invariably demonstrate that mathematical modeling can provide good prediction of key information of vacuum cooling process, and has a great potential to improve vacuum cooling process in the food industry. However, more efforts are still needed to realize the industrial translation of laboratory results.

Keywords:

• Vacuum cooling
• mathematical model
• heat and mass transfer coefficient
• meat
• fruit and vegetables

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

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 (201604020057), the Agricultural Development and Rural Work of Guangdong Province (2017LM4173), 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.