Ultrasound generation and ultrasonic application on fresh food freezing: Effects on freezing parameters, physicochemical properties and final quality of frozen foods

ABSTRACT

Recent research on ultrasound has shown that it is a promising technology having a wide range of benefits. This review is aimed to compile the recent development and highlight the major benefits of ultrasound application to assist food freezing. In addition to this, basic mechanisms of ultrasound for freezing process acceleration and equipment used for ultrasound generation are also covered together with a few ultrasonic devices that are mandatory in existing ultrasound-assisted freezing processes. Previous works show that ultrasound-assisted freezing offers various benefits over traditional freezing processes, such as high freezing rate and smaller and even ice crystal size distribution, resulting in better preservation of microstructures and frozen product quality, offering the potential benefits to frozen food industries.

KEYWORDS:

• Ultrasound
• cavitation
• nucleation
• freezing
• fruits
• vegetable
• meat
• fish

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the financial support from the Key R & D projects of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (No:2020B02017-1), the 111 Project (BP0719028), the Yangzhou City Agricultural Key R&D Program (No. YZ2019034), the Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory Project of Advanced Food Manufacturing Equipment and Technology (No. FMZ202003) and the Jiangsu Province “Collaborative Innovation Center for Food Safety and Quality Control” Industry Development Program, all of which enabled us to carry out this study.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Key R & D projects of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (No:2020B02017-1).