Abstract
In Europe, science and innovation are boosting the agri-food sector and, in parallel, are helping to decrease greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and European dependency on non-renewable resources. Currently, it is well-known that this sector contributes to the consumption of energy and material resources, causing significant environmental impacts that require a complex and comprehensive environmental evaluation in order to manage them effectively. This becomes even more complicated when new technologies are reaching the level of technological maturity needed to be installed in the production lines. To address this scientific challenge, the life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used in this paper to evaluate the potential of pulsed electric fields (PEF) technology at an industrial scale to facilitate the steam peeling of tomato fruits. Considering the thermo-physical peeling stage, the LCA has shown that PEF technology is environmentally friendly, because when PEF technology is applied, all the considered environmental indicators improve between 17% and 20%.
Highlights
Agriculture is one of the most ancient and important sectors in the world
The results achieved from visual tests, in terms of peel performance, showed that a minimum steam pressure of 100 kPa was necessary to achieve fully peeled tomatoes according to the standard product quality of FPD Company (McMurray, PA, USA)
Results are divided into two different sections: the first section contains the results referring to the conventional processing and the second section contains the results obtained after analyzing the tests performed with the pulsed electric fields (PEF) technology at the industrial level
Summary
Agriculture is one of the most ancient and important sectors in the world. According to Eurostat [1], in 2015, just in Europe (EU-28), more than 178 million hectares were utilized as agricultural areas, including arable land (60%), permanent grassland (33%), permanent crops (7%), and other agricultural land, such as kitchen gardens (
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