Design, Construction and Evaluation of Pulsed Electric Field System for Food Processing

Utilizing the latest available technologies is essential for food preservation and processing. Consumers increasingly prefer products that have undergone the least change during processing and storage. Among them, pulsed electric field (PEF) is one of the non-thermal methods of food processing and storage. In this study, a Pulsed Electric Field system was designed, fabricated and then evaluated. For this purpose, a Schmidt-Trigger-based pulse generating system system and a semiconductor key (IGBT) were designed and tested using a gate driver with DC output. The input parameters for the tests included: voltage, number and frequency of pulses as well as pulse width. In order to adjust the two parameters, pulse number and excitation frequency, a touch panel and autotransformer were utilized to adjust the voltage. A constant pulse width of 2 microseconds was used. The results of the evaluation were reported in two parts. In the first part, the evaluation of the system function was performed using an oscilloscope and high voltage waves were produced. In the second part, the evaluation of the fish samples was performed in terms of the effect on the value of extracting protein. The Response-Surface method and Box-Bhenken scheme were used for data analysis and process optimization. Results of analyses showed that based on regression coefficients, the effect of the voltage factor and the second voltage factor had the highest influence on Protein extraction increase.