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·mL−1) 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.
Highlights
The food industry’s future economic growth and prosperity depend on the adoption of creative, sustainable, and innovative processing technologies to produce high-quality foods with extended shelf-life
An external electrical field is utilized in Pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment; ions’ inner and outer living cells align along the field
Some measures were taken to maintain the electrical resistance of the coaxial treatment chamber
Summary
The food industry’s future economic growth and prosperity depend on the adoption of creative, sustainable, and innovative processing technologies to produce high-quality foods with extended shelf-life. An external electrical field is utilized in PEF treatment; ions’ inner and outer living cells align along the field. Sustainability 2022, 14, 1896 utilized in PEF treatment; ions’ inner and outer living cells align along the field. An intensive electric field changes a trans-membrane pothe membrane thickness [1,2]. An intensive electric field changes a trans-membrane tential that leads to the breakage of the lipid membrane [3]. This process, electroporation, potential that leads to the breakage of the lipid membrane [3]. This process, electroporation, alters the membrane’s phospholipid bilayer, resulting in the loss of viability and cell alters the membrane’s phospholipid bilayer, resulting in the loss of viability and cell death
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