Novel sequential and simultaneous infrared-accelerated drying technologies for the food industry: Principles, applications and challenges

Abstract

Infrared drying (IRD) is considered an innovative drying solution for the food industry with advantages of energy-saving potentials, reduced drying time and production cost-effectiveness. However, IRD also suffers from drawbacks such as weak penetrative ability, and product overheating and burning. Therefore, over the years, significant progress has been made to overcome these shortcomings by developing infrared-accelerated drying (IRAD) technology based on the combination of IRD with other drying technologies. Although several reviews have been published on IRD, no review focusing on IRAD is yet available. The current review presents up-to-date knowledge and findings on the applications of IRAD technologies for enhancing the quality and safety of food. The fundamental principles and characteristics of IRAD, energy-saving potentials, simulation and optimization approaches for enhancing efficiency, and developments in various acceleration approaches by combining with other drying techniques for achieving better end-products are discussed, and challenges and future work for developing the novel accelerated drying technology are also presented. Due to the synergistic effects of sequential or simultaneous combined drying methods, the total drying time and energy required are drastically lowered with most IRAD technologies, and consequently there are significant improvements in the sensory, nutritional, and safety attributes of dried food products with better appearance and quality. The development of multi-wavelength IRAD systems based on infrared absorption bands, and the incorporation of novel sensing techniques for real-time monitoring during drying will further enhance process efficiency and food quality and safety.

Keywords:

• Infrared-accelerated drying
• energy consumption
• food quality and safety
• simulation and optimization

Funding

The authors are grateful to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31972205, 32272466) for their support. This research was also supported by the Key R&D Program of Guangdong Province (2021B0202070001), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515110396, 2021A1515010644), Guangzhou Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (202201010008), the Contemporary International Collaborative Research Centre of Guangdong Province on Food Innovative Processing and Intelligent Control (2019A050519001), the Science and Technology Plan Projects of Guangzhou City (202102100009) and the Common Technical Innovation Team of Guangdong Province on Preservation and Logistics of Agricultural Products (2022KJ145). Obafemi Ibitayo Obajemihi is in receipt of a PhD Scholarship (2019ZFY014373) from the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for his PhD study.

Disclosure statement

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Data availability statement

Data are available within the article or its supplementary materials.