Sustainable Electroporator for Continuous Pasteurisation: Design and Performance Evaluation with Orange Juice
Author(s)
Date Issued
2022
Type
article
Volume
14
Start Page
1
End Page
13
Journal
Abstract
Electroporation is a simple but effective and sustainable food processing way of treating
cell membranes with an electric field. It is employed in a variety of ways in the food industry, ranging
from shelf-life extension to green extraction. Despite its wide range of applications, electroporators
are out of reach for many labs due to their high development costs, and different electroporators
have been tailored to specific applications. The designing sequence of an electroporator that takes the
geometry of a treatment chamber and its electrical resistance into account for the design of a pulse
generator has not been addressed in published literature. To meet this demand, this study presents
a straightforward way to develop a simple, affordable, and portable electroporator for liquid food
pasteurisation. The proposed electroporator comprises a coaxial treatment chamber with static mixers
and a high-voltage Marx bank based on insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). The generator
has a 4.5 kV output voltage and a peak current rating of 1 kA; however, the modular design allows
for a wide range of voltage and current ratings. Treated orange juice using thermal pasteurisation
(65 C, 30 min) was also used for comparison. The performance of the electroporator was studied
using chemical and microbial tests. A significant log reduction (5.4 CFU mL1) was observed in
both the PEF-treated samples with sieves. Additionally, the treated juice visual and chemical color
analysis showed that the PEF-treated sample extended the shelf-life after 9 days of storage at 4 C.
This research also examines the energy conversion in these two processing steps. This study assists
in developing further electroporators for other food applications with different treatment chambers
without compromising the product’s quality.
Subjects
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