Principles and Potential Applications of Cavitation Technology for Nano-Foods

Abstract

In the past decades, the implementation of nanotechnology on food has been receiving a great deal of attention. This chapter is focused on the working principle of ultrasound (US) cavitation technology and its potential for nanofood processing and production. US cavitation is well known to generate high shear, free radicals and heat to a system. These 3 products of cavitation can be utilized for nanofoods preparation, processing and preservation. Particularly, the high shear produced by high power ultrasound (HPU) is found to be sufficient for nanoemulsification and nanoencapsulation processes, where emulsion droplets of nanosized can be effectively produced and employed to encapsulate various bioactive compound to work as food supplement that possessed enhanced bioactive delivery performance. Besides, the acoustic compression and extension was noticed to reduce the shell thickness of various foods, which thus easing the water evaporation during spray drying process. The radicals and thermal energy obtained through the US irradiation, on the other hand can be utilized to induce pasteurization to breakdown the cell membrane of microorganisms, thus reducing the harmful effects against food as well as inactivate enzymes that will eventually decrease the shelf life of food. Besides the mentioned applications, the US cavitation can also improved the extraction yield of lipid and nutrients from a plant, which the extracted products can be further emulsified and encapsulated in the form of nanoemulsions. Overall, this chapter provides an overview on the fundamental of US, its potential in nanoemulsification, spray drying, pasteurization and oil extraction for nanofood as well as its future perspectives.