POROUS MEDIA APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING AND IMPROVEMENT OF FOOD QUALITY

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: NRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0210901
• Grant No.: 2008-35503-18657
• Proposal No.: 2007-02587
• Project Start Date: Dec 1, 2007
• Project End Date: Nov 30, 2012
• Grant Year: 2008
• Program Code: [71.1]- Improving Food Quality and Value

Recipient Organization
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
ITHACA,NY 14853

Performing Department
BIOLOGICAL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

Non Technical Summary
Physical processes in food are less understood than chemical and microbiological processes. Often, these physical processes play a primary role in defining quality (and sometimes safety). Examples of such processes can be loss or gain of water/oil in the food, shrinkage, crust formation, etc. As is true with physics in general, many apparently diverse food operations, such as soaking of beans, sogginess of bread in a sandwich during storage, and meat cooking, can be explained using some of the same general principles. It is the goal of this project to develop such general principles. We look at food as a shrinkable or swellable porous material like a sponge. Starting from the fundamental physical descriptions of transport (movement) of water, oil, etc. in such a porous media, that includes factors such as pore size, extent of heating, and the degree to which the food matrix shrinks or swells, we would develop quantitative relationships between food quality and safety as the consumer perceives it and the parameters such as temperature that are under the control of process designer. As a result of this, food product and process development will be under better control of their designers, helping them create novel products, processes and equipment in a more rational and efficient manner as opposed to the frequent trial and error procedure.

Animal Health Component

25%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

75%

Applied

25%

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
501	5010	2020	100%

Knowledge Area
501 - New and Improved Food Processing Technologies;

Subject Of Investigation
5010 - Food;

Field Of Science
2020 - Engineering;

Keywords

rehydration

sandwich

meat cooking

shrinkage

swelling

transport

Goals / Objectives
We propose to develop a comprehensive framework of multiphase transport in a deformable (shrinkable/swellable) porous media that can effectively describe a large array of food processes more accurately.

Project Methods
1) Obtain novel experimental data for fundamental properties for a number of food materials to characterize them as porous media; 2) For a number of representative and economically important food processes, develop non-empirical, physics (multiphase, deformable porous media)-based mathematical models using the measured properties and verify them using experimental data; 3) Using the detailed knowledge of the representative processes and properties, supplemented by available literature information, complete the framework.

Progress 12/01/07 to 11/30/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: The primary output from this project is fundamental knowledge of food physics. Most of it has been included in publications but a synthesis of all aspects developed in this project, together with what was known earlier and related work from colleagues around the world is being put in a textbook. There are software that have been developed--they have been shared with others in the spirit of cooperation and will be available for such use in the future. Presentations at the Annual Meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) have been made numerous times and a session on food as porous media has been organized. The publications and presentations in IFT and other engineering conferences have reached the largest possible national and international groups working on food process engineering. The knowledge is expected to be included in textbooks, research monographs, future models of food process, and so on. Knowledge specific to food processes, such as frying, meat cooking and baking, should eventually get incorporated in books and publications that deal with quality and safety related to process and product design. PARTICIPANTS: Ashish Dhall Vineet Rakesh Amit Halder Alex Warning TARGET AUDIENCES: Researchers in food process engineering; Product and process developers in food industry PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.

Impacts
A comprehensive poromechanics-based modeling framework that can be used to model transport and deformation in food materials under a variety of processing conditions and states (rubbery or glassy) has been developed. Simplifications to the model equations have been developed, based on driving forces for deformation (moisture change and gas pressure development) and on the state of food material for transport. The framework has been applied to model meat cooking, drying, frying and puffing, without empiricism that is common in the literature. The power of the framework can be seen being able to model such diverse processes. We can compare and contrast processes and see when one process can replace the other (or how two processes can be combined). For example, between meat cooking and drying of potato, transport in liquid phase dominates for both the processes, with hamburger patty shrinking with moisture loss for all moisture contents, while shrinkage in potato stops below a critical moisture content. We can predict shrinkage from fundamental considerations, as opposed to simply measuring shrinkage after the fact. The deformable porous media framework provides a quantum leap of the physical understanding of food processes and provides the missing platform on which more sophisticated engineering of food processing will continue to be built into the future. Together with understanding, the other major contribution of such a physics-based framework for food processing is its incorporation into computer-aided engineering software where we can perform "what if" scenarios. For example, using such software, we can ask questions such as how do we change size, shape, composition of the product, and the processing conditions, to improve quality and guarantee safety. Such computer-aided engineering tools can increase the efficiency and competitiveness of product, process and equipment designs for value-added foods. The same tools that have made automobile, airplane and chemical process designs impressively more efficient are potentially available to the food sector using our framework.

Publications

• Zhu, H., A. Dhall, S. Mukherjee and A. K. Datta. 2010. A model for flow and deformation in unsaturated swelling porous media. Transport in Porous Media, 84(2):335-369.
• Rakesh, V. and A. K. Datta. 2013. Transport in deformable hygroscopic porous media during microwave puffing. American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, 59(1):2013:33--45.
• Rakesh, V. and A. K. Datta. 2013. Microwave combination heating. Comprehensive Reviews of Food Science and Food Safety. In Press. Expected in Volume 12, Issue 1, to be published online at 10.1111/j.1541-4337.2012.00211.x
• Datta, A. K., R. van der Sman, T. Gulati and A. Warning. 2012. Soft matter approaches as enablers for food macroscale simulation. Invited paper in Faraday Discussions, Journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. 158:435--459.
• Nicolai, B. M., A. K. Datta, T. Defraeye, M. A. Delele, Q. T. Ho, L. Opara, H. Ramon, E. Tijskens, R. van der Sman, P. V. Liedekerke, P. Verboven. 2012. Multiscale modeling in food engineering. Journal of Food Engineering. In press. Published currently online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2012.08.019
• Dhall, A. and A. K. Datta. 2012. Multiphase and multicomponent transport with phase change during meat cooking. Journal of Food Engineering, 113(2):299-309.
• Rakesh, V., Datta, A. K., Walton, J. H., McCarthy, K. L. and McCarthy, M. J. 2012. Microwave combination heating: Coupled electromagnetics- multiphase porous media modeling and MRI experimentation. AIChE Journal 58(4): 1262-1278.
• Warning, A., A. Dhall, D. Mitrea and A. K. Datta. 2011. Porous media based model for deep-fat vacuum frying potato chips. Journal of Food Engineering, 110(3):428-440.
• Halder, A. and A.K. Datta. 2011. Surface heat and mass transfer coefficients for multiphase porous media transport models with rapid evaporation. Food and Bioproducts Processing, Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, 90(C3):475-490.
• Dhall, A. and A. K. Datta. 2011. Transport in deformable food materials: A poromechanics approach. Chemical Engineering Science, 66(24):6482--6497.
• Halder, A., A. Dhall and A. K. Datta. 2011. Modeling transport in porous media with phase change: Applications to food processing. Journal of Heat Transfer, Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. 133(3): 031010-1--031010-13
• Rakesh, V. and A. K. Datta. 2011. Microwave puffing: Determination of optimal conditions using a coupled multiphase porous media-Large deformation model. Journal of Food Engineering, 107(2):152-163.
• Halder, A., A. K. Datta and R. M. Spanswick. 2011. Water transport in cellular tissues during thermal processing. American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, 57(9):2574-2588.
• Nicolai, B., J. Banga, E. Josea, N. Scheerlinck and A. K. Datta. 2011. Fuzzy finite element analysis of heat conduction problems with uncertain parameters. Journal of Food Engineering, 103(1):38-46.

Progress 12/01/10 to 11/30/11

Outputs
OUTPUTS: A physically based multiphase porous material model is developed which includes large strain viscoelasticity and is potentially capable for predicting the case hardening effect during drying of foodstuffs. The model includes mechanisms such as bulk flow, capillary flow and phase change for the water phase; bulk flow, binary diffusion and phase change for the gas phase (with vapor and air as its components) and it includes heat transfer as well as viscoelastic large deformation of the solid matrix. This fully coupled system can be implemented using the ALE algorithm and appropriate formulations are provided. Numerical implementation of this model in commercial software has been attempted with all needed input parameters listed. Numerical implementation of the uncoupled problem (solid mechanics) with large strain viscoelasticity has been accomplished in commercial software. The results provide useful insights for the fully two-way coupled problem. PARTICIPANTS: Prof. S. Mukherjee, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University. Haolin Zhu, Graduate Student, Cornell University. TARGET AUDIENCES: Food industry and researchers. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.

Impacts
When the development is complete, the model can be used to predict shrinkage of dehydrated food products from first principles when it deviates from water loss. This should allow us to improve quality through better understanding of the interactions between process and product variables.

Publications

• Zhu, H. 2012. Two-way coupling of multiphase transport and viscoelastic large deformation of unsaturated swelling porous materials. PhD Dissertation. Cornell University.

Progress 12/01/09 to 11/30/10

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Increased interest in microwave puffing is due to its ability to obtain low-fat and ready-to-eat healthy products. Determination of optimal conditions for this complicated process has been difficult and although several patents exist on the concept, we are yet to see any large scale commercial use. A fundamental physics based modeling approach integrated with relevant experimentation, developed in this work, is an ideal framework to understand and optimize microwave puffing. The results showed that puffing may not be successful unless carried out using an intensive heating source such as microwaves. Addition of infrared and hot air leads to better quality product whereas using forced air convection is not desirable. There is an optimum initial moisture content depending on the puffing conditions. PARTICIPANTS: Not relevant to this project. TARGET AUDIENCES: Not relevant to this project. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.

Impacts
The study provides critical guidelines to food product/process developers for successful development, control and automation of microwave puffing, thereby leading to value-added nutritious products.

Publications

• Rakesh, V. and A. K. Datta. 2010. Microwave puffing: Determination of optimal conditions using a coupled multiphase porous media-large deformation model. Submitted to the Journal of Food Engineering.

Progress 12/01/08 to 11/30/09

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Capillary pressure, permeability and pore size distribution measurements were done to characterize cellular food tissue (potato) as a porous material. Bio-impedance analysis was applied to quantify the amount of water present in the capillaries and cells in the tissues of two different food materials (potato and eggplant) at different temperatures. A multiphase model based on unsaturated flow in a hygroscopic porous media, which accounts for the important physical phenomena that take place during thermal treatment of meat, is developed. The model is validated for double-sided contact heating of hamburger patties by comparing temperature and moisture profiles with experimental studies. Currently, work is underway to extend the transport model to include the effect of meat shrinkage. Also, Hybrid Mixture Theory (HMT) based model (developed last year) is being applied to predict rehydration kinetics during cooking of initially dry food. PARTICIPANTS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. TARGET AUDIENCES: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
Using a combination of permeability measurement, pore size distribution analysis and bio-impedance analysis, it is shown that water in a cellular tissue is mostly intracellular at the lower temperatures at which cell membranes are intact. During drying at high temperatures, cell membranes are damaged and the moisture transport pathway is primarily extracellular (through intercellular spaces and the lacunae created by the killed cells), with a much lower resistance to water transport. By identifying moisture transport pathways and exploiting Kelvin's law, which relates water activity to interaction between the solid skeleton and the moisture, a food researcher can delve deeper into understanding the effect of changes in food structure on moisture transport. Such an approach, in combination with coupled modeling of transport and deformation, can help to fundamentally understand and elucidate effects of the different physical phenomena associated with food processing such as shrinkage/swelling due to heat and moisture change, gas pressure generation due to vaporization, change in water holding capacity etc.

Publications

• 1) Zhu H., Dhall A., Datta A.K. & Mukherjee S. (2010). A Model for Flow and Deformation in Unsaturated Swelling Porous Media. Transport in Porous Media (in press).
• 2) Dhall A., Halder A. & Datta A.K. (2010) Multiphase and Multi-component Transport with Phase Change during Meat Cooking. AIChE J. (under review)
• 3) Halder A., Datta A.K. & Spanswick R.M. (2010) Water Transport in Cellular Tissues During Thermal Processing. AIChE J. (under review)

Progress 12/01/07 to 11/30/08

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Permeability of water in pores (extracellular pathway) is estimated using Liquid Extrusion Porosimetry. Water diffusivity at low temperatures (intracellular pathway) is calculated using moisture isotherms and Kelvin's equation. The calculated water diffusivity values match closely with the experimental data. Using the concept of two pathways, moisture transport in multicomponent foods has been solved. Rehydration/ dehydration of food materials are studied and its theoretical model has been developed that includes non-Fickian transport due to viscoelastic relaxation. The food material is treated as an unsaturated swelling porous-media and using Hybrid Mixture Theory, a simple form of differential-integral equation is obtained for the fluid transport coupled with deformation of the solid matrix. PARTICIPANTS: Not relevant to this project. TARGET AUDIENCES: Not relevant to this project. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.

Impacts
A comprehensive framework of multiphase transport in a deformable (shrinkable/swellable) porous media can effectively describe a large array of food processes accurately but such a food specific framework and associated material properties are currently unavailable.

Publications

• No publications reported this period