COMPUTER-AIDED FOOD QUALITY ENGINEERING

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0219583
• Grant No.: 2009-65503-05800
• Cumulative Award Amt.: $472,947.00
• Proposal No.: 2009-02320
• Project Start Date: Sep 1, 2009
• Project End Date: Aug 31, 2014
• Grant Year: 2009
• Program Code: [93430]- Improving Food Quality and Value

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

Performing Department
Biological & Environmental Engineering

Non Technical Summary
Developing novel, high-quality food products and processes is easier with broader knowledge of the changes that define the final quality of food- quantitative and fundamentals-based understanding of which is unavailable today. Using a multidisciplinary and multi-investigator approach that involves food chemistry, engineering and quality, this project would make food quality prediction possible. An effective quality attribute (texture, color of food) is predicted by following relevant chemical reactions and changes in temperature and composition during processing. Mathematical models (that can be solved on the computer) implement these chemical reactions and changes in an user friendly manner, making it possible for a non-expert to have the predictive capability. Such predictive capability complements experimentation, reducing development time and cost; it allows the user to check "what if" scenarios for complex food processes, important in process and product development. We will provide this software tool for the product and process designers and in education, making computer-aided food design a reality.

Animal Health Component

20%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

80%

Applied

20%

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
501	5010	2000	40%
501	5010	2010	30%
501	5010	2020	30%

Knowledge Area
501 - New and Improved Food Processing Technologies;

Subject Of Investigation
5010 - Food;

Field Of Science
2010 - Physics; 2020 - Engineering; 2000 - Chemistry;

Keywords

fundamentals

food quality

food physics

food chemistry

computer model

Goals / Objectives
We propose to develop the framework for a quantitative, first-principle-based understanding of food quality that should make it easier for science-based decision-making and problem solving for food product and process developers as well as in an education environment. The framework can also grow into the future and be easily incorporated into computer-aided engineering capability (that can simulate realistic processes and products using physics-based models) for the food sector, increasing its productivity and reducing product, process and equipment development time, making it more competitive. Our hypothesis is that a quality attribute, at its most elementary level, can be thought of as a chemical reaction or a set of reactions, while physical changes (e.g., texture development) result from such a reaction(s). The extents of these chemical reactions are functions of histories of temperature, moisture, and/or other composition, varying spatially throughout the food matrix. A computer model can track any number of compositional changes over the entire food matrix as long as it knows the reactions (rates and dependence on temperature and/or concentrations) that lead to their generation or destruction, and their initial amounts. If a process model can provide accurate histories of temperature or composition (varying spatially), combining these histories with chemical reactions in various species will provide the ability to predict quality attributes from fundamental considerations. Such quality attributes will vary throughout the food and the composite variation over the food regions would provide the quality that we perceive. Such a quantitative framework for quality is a useful standalone and it can also be easily programmed into computational software as part of computer-aided product and process design, benefiting both industry and academia. The specific objectives for the project are: 1. Develop a framework for prediction of food quality 2. Couple the quality framework with fundamentals-based process modeling to achieve quality prediction of realistic processes 3. Validate the quality prediction framework using experimental data 4. Extend the framework to additional processes and quality attributes 5. Incorporate the framework in a soft ware to make a readily usable quality predictor tool for both industry and education

Project Methods
The process framework is developed out of conservation (balance) of energy and mass quantities such as moisture or any other parameter of composition, combined with laws governing transport (flow and diffusion) of these quantities. The process model provides temperature, moisture, or other composition at any location in the food with time, which in turn affects the physical and chemical quality attributes. The combined process and quality framework will provide the quality attributes that we will experimentally validate and later extend to other processes. For process modeling the governing differential equations for multiphase transport in food as a porous medium will be followed from our previous work for rigid and deformable media. The flow of three phases-air, water vapor and liquid water-in a porous medium is considered here. Flow of other phases such as oil can also be included in an analogous manner. Local thermal (not moisture) equilibrium is assumed, and all gases are assumed to be ideal. Mass conservation of the three phases are set up. The mass fluxes consist of not just diffusion (for gases) or capillary diffusion (for liquid), but also pressure-driven flow of all vapor, air and water. Capillary diffusivity is initially considered to be concentration dependent only. The equation for energy conservation is set up with distributed evaporation and flow (velocities obtained from the mass balance equations described earlier). An internal heat generation term is included as necessary (for example, in microwave heating). Evaporation, distributed throughout the matrix, is included using a non-equilibrium rate formulation with which we have had considerable success in describing processes such as frying and meat cooking. For quality modeling, we will consider mechanical properties and color. We are proposing a two-pronged approach to predicting the effective mechanical properties of a processed food material. In both cases, the food material is treated as a composite in which the effective (homogenized) property of the composite can be obtained from local (i.e., at a point in the food) property values that vary throughout the food. For color, we focus on color components formed in the non-enzymatic browning reaction (Maillard). The hypothesis is that this is one common reaction that leads nonetheless to different colors in different foods because of i) varying temperature in space and time (depending on the material properties of the food as well as the heating technique applied), ii) varying water content in space and time, resulting in concentration changes of reactants and products, and iii) varying chemical reactivities of reactants if different foods contain different reactants that are subject to the same reaction. The process model, providing temperature and moisture among other variables, will be coupled with kinetic models for quality attributes, providing predictive capability for quality based on first-principle (least amount of empiricism).

Progress 09/01/09 to 08/31/14

Outputs
Target Audience: Academic researchers in food science and engineering. Product, process and equipment designers in industry Graduate and undergraduate students in food science and engineering Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project provided training for 2 PhD students and 1 Post-Doctoral person to gaina thorough understanding in the areas of heat and mass transfer, solid mechanics, mathematical modeling and simulations of food processes. This lead to creation of food engineers who have fundamental andmechanistic understanding of food processes. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Meeting presentations, journal publications and web-based materials What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Quality development (e.g. volumetric expansion, material shrinkage, porosity, final moisture content) during salt-assisted puffing, gun-puffing and microwave drying of food materials has been studied using a fundamentals-based heat and mass transfer model coupled with large deformations of the solid matrix. Quality attributes associated with texture for drying and puffing processes have been experimentally measured as well as predicted from process models in order to have confidence on the models developed. Texture degradation during cooking of root vegetables (e.g. carrot) has been studied using microscale modeling and homogenization techniques. Pectin degradation along with decrease in turgor pressure have been identified as key factors for overall texture loss during cooking. Quality changes during meat cooking has been studied in the most fundamental way by quantifying the formation of Heterocyclic Amines (cancer promoting compounds) and destruction of harmful bacteria (E.Coli). Key reactants (reducing sugars) that are responsible for color formation during deep-fat frying in the crust and core of potato strips have been identified and quantified experimentally at different stages of the frying process. These have been related to the moisture in the crust and core at different frying times that would aid in developing kinetic models for color prediction using a reaction based approach. Likewise, for texture formation, spatial variation of modulusof carrot disks during cooking were obtained and attempts were made to correlate this modulus with measurements of degree of methylation of pectin. In summary, framework has been developed for quality prediction from fundamentals, unlike in the past where quality prediction has been mostly empirical.

Publications

• Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Datta, A. K. and A. Dhall. 2013. Modeling food process, quality and safety: Frameworks and challenges. S. Yanniotis et al. (eds.). Advances in Food Process Engineering Research and Applications. Food Engineering Series. DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-7906-2_22. Springer Science+Business Media, New York.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Warning, A., P. Verboven, B. Nicola�, G. van Dalen and A. K. Datta. 2014. Computation of mass transport properties of apple and rice from X-ray microtomography images. Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies (In Press with electronic version at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ifset.2013.12.017)
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Rakesh, V. and A. K. Datta. 2013. Transport in deformable hygroscopic porous media during microwave puffing. American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, 59(1):2013:3345.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2012 Citation: 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.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2012 Citation: Gulati, T. and A. K. Datta. 2012. Food property estimation equations for enabling computer-aided food process engineering. Journal of Food Engineering. In press. Published currently online at; 10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2012.12.016.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2012 Citation: Thussu, S. and A. K. Datta. 2012. Texture prediction during deep frying: A mechanistic approach. Journal of Food Engineering, 108:111121.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2011 Citation: 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.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Kadam S. A. and A. Datta. 2014. "Modeling Mechanical Property Changes During Heating of Carrot Tissue-a Microscale Approach". COMSOL Conference, Boston, MA
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Chen, F., T. Gulati and A. Datta. 2014. Microwave heating simulation of frozen pie. Poster presentation at the COMSOL Conference, Oct. 9, Boston, MA.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Gulati, T. and Datta, A.K. 2014. Modeling Flow and Deformation During Salt-Assisted Puffing of Single Rice Kernels. COMSOL Conference, Oct. 9, Boston, MA
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Gulati, T. and Datta, A.K. 2014. A Three Dimensional (3D) Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical Model for Microwave Drying. COMSOL Conference, Oct. 9, Boston, MA
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Kadam, S. A. and A.K. Datta. 2014. Microscale modeling of mechanical property changes during thermal processing of carrot tissue. Conference of Food Engineering (CoFE), Omaha, NE, April 7-9.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Gulati, T. and A.K. Datta. 2014. "Development of a fundamentals-based model to understand microwave drying of foods." 6th Annual BEE Research Symposium, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, February 7.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Gulati, T., Jerez, M.J.O. and A.K. Datta. 2014. "A quantitative, first-principles based understanding of Refractance Window" drying", Conference of Food Engineering (CoFE), Omaha, NE, April 7-9.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Zhu, H., Gulati, T. and A.K. Datta. 2014. "Modeling and experiments for microwave drying of potato spheres". Conference of Food Engineering (CoFE), Omaha, NE, April 7-9.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Gulati, T., Zhu, H. and A.K. Datta. 2014. Texture Development During Microwave Drying: A 3D Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical Model for Microwave Drying of Potatoes. IFT Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, June 22-26.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Gulati, T., Kadam, S. and A.K. Datta. 2014. Transport and Deformation During Hot Air Puffing of Rice Kernels. IFT Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, June 22-26.

Progress 09/01/12 to 08/31/13

Outputs
Target Audience: Academic researchers in food science and engineering. Product and process designers in industry. Graduate students in food science. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Meeting presentations and journal publications. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? A study regarding the amino compounds and Melanoidins that play role in the Maillard reaction is currently underway to develop the kinetics of color formation during frying. The kinetics of color and texture will be integrated with transport models to obtain models of quality, as is the goal for the project.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Texture development during frying, hot air drying and puffing of food materials is studied using a fundamentals-based heat and mass transfer model coupled with large deformations of the solid matrix. Various quality attributes associated with texture are predicted from the process models with very little empirical information. A framework for color prediction is presented and applied to frying of potatoes. Amount of reducing sugars in the core and crust have been measured experimentally at different stages of the frying process.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2012 Citation: Arias-Mendeza, A., A. Warning, A. K. Datta, E. Balsa-Canto. 2013. Quality and safety driven optimal operation of deep-fat frying of potato chips. Journal of Food Engineering, 119(1):125-134. 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. Nicola�, 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 Gulati, T. and A. K. Datta. 2012. Food property estimation equations for enabling computer-aided food process engineering. Journal of Food Engineering. In press. Published currently online at 10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2012.12.016.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2012 Citation: Gulati, T. and A. K. Datta 2012. Multiphase Transport with Large Deformations Undergoing Rubbery-Glassy Phase Transition: Applications to Drying. Presented at the COMSOL Conference, Boston, Oct. 3-5. Abstract at http://www.comsol.com/conference2012/usa/abstract/id/13714/gulati_abstract.pdf A. Arias-Mendez, A. Warning, A.K. Datta, E. Balsa-Canto. 2012. Reducing acrylamide content in deep-fat frying through process optimization. Presented at the European Federation of Food Science and Technology Annual Meeting, Montpellier, France. Gulati, T. and A. K. Datta. 2013. Numerical and experimental investigation of selective heating of multicomponent foods during microwave heating. IFT Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, July 13-16. Warning, A., Nicolai, B., van Dalen, G., Datta, A.K. 2013. Transport Properties of Foods Estimated from Microstructure. Inside Food Symposium, Leuven, Belgium. April 9-12. Warning, A., Nicolai, B., van Dalen, G., Datta, A.K. 2013. Calculated Transport Properties of 3D Geometries from X-Ray Microtomography Images. IFT annual meeting, Chicago, IL, July 14.

Progress 09/01/11 to 08/31/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Knowledge base development for fundamentals-based prediction of mechanical property (texture of foods). Work has been disseminated at IFT meeting and COMSOL engineering simulation meetings. PARTICIPANTS: Tiny van Boekel, Wageningen University, The Netherlands TARGET AUDIENCES: Researchers interested in predicting food quality, particularly texture. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.

Impacts
Work continues on prediction of case hardening in foods from fundamental principles. Drying of biomaterials such as foodstuffs involves mass, momentum and energy transport along with large shrinkage of the porous material, which have significant effects on their final quality. Foodstuffs exhibit non-linearity when undergoing large deformations that affect the transport process in a critical way. Thus, it becomes important to perform a two-way coupling of the multiphase transport and large deformation when modeling drying of foodstuffs. With this objective, a fundamentals-based multiphase porous media model is developed to simulate a drying process and predict certain key quality attributes such as shrinkage and case-hardening. Three phases are considered in the system: solid (skeleton), liquid (water) and gas (water vapor and air). Drying of a cylindrical sample of potato is taken as an example. Modes of liquid water transport include capillary flow and gas pressure driven flow; transport in gas phase is due to diffusion and gas pressure. Evaporation, distributed spatially, is modeled assuming equilibrium between water and water vapor. Equations for the solid mechanics include linear momentum balance and constitutive relationship between the stress and strain assuming potatoes as hyperelastic. A 2-D axisymmetric geometry was constructed in COMSOL Multiphysics 4.2a. Concentration of different species were solved for using the transport of dilute species module (for liquid water) and Maxwell-Stefan Diffusion model (for vapor and air) together with Darcy Law (to calculate Gas Pressure). Temperature of different species was obtained by solving one Heat Transfer equation assuming thermal equilibrium between different phases. Shrinkage and solid displacements were obtained using the Hyperelastic Material model in the Structural Mechanics Module. The model is experimentally validated by comparing temperature, moisture and diameter change histories available from the literature. Complex shrinkage pattern, which is not simply equal to the amount of water lost leads to case-hardening (a thin dried and rigid layer all around), is captured through moisture and state dependent (rubbery/glassy) mechanical and transport properties. Key quality attributes such as crust formation, deviations in shrinkage, porosity development and changes in bulk density, which are related to the glass transition temperature, are predicted. Such a mechanistic approach provides a framework for quality prediction for understanding and improvement of many products and processes beyond simple drying that involve a complex interplay of heat and mass transport and large deformation (shrinkage/swelling).

Publications

• Gulati, T. and A. K. Datta. 2012. Food property estimation equations for enabling computer-aided food process engineering. Journal of Food Engineering. In press. Published currently online at 10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2012.12.016.

Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/11

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Case hardening and texture development during drying is investigated from fundamental principles, using potato as an example.A heat and mass transport model is developed based on saturated and unsaturated flow in a deformable porous medium. As the potato loses water during drying (i.e., it shrinks), stresses and large deformation results that is included as part of solid mechanical model. Modes of water transport include bulk flow, capillary flow and phase change, and for gas include bulk flow, binary diffusion and phase change. Equations for the solid mechanics include linear momentum balance and constitutive relationship between the stress and strain treating potatoes as non-linear, viscoelastic and undergoing large deformations. The model is then experimentally validated by comparing temperature, moisture and diameter change histories. Complex shrinkage pattern, which is not simply equal to the amount of lost water, leads to case hardening, which is predicted. The Secant Modulus (slope of the stress-strain curve for non-linear materials) is used as a measure for the texture development. PARTICIPANTS: Tushar Gulati, Graduate student TARGET AUDIENCES: Food processors and researchers PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.

Impacts
Relationship of case hardening to drying temperatures, heat transfer coefficient, mass transfer coefficient, and moisture diffusivity is investigated through sensitivity analysis. Knowledge of case hardening is critical in understanding quality development in drying of foodstuffs.

Publications

• No publications reported this period

Progress 09/01/09 to 08/31/10

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Using Young's modulus as a measure for texture, a framework for predicting the effective modulus of a solid food material is extended to four moisture removal processes. The effective modulus is predicted using mechanical analysis from local modulus values that depend on transient moisture and temperature. For the process of frying, the development of modulus could be predicted from the same dependence of moisture and temperature. These predictions compared well with experimentally measured modulus. The prediction framework is then extended to the processes of baking and microwave heating. The moisture and temperature information needed for prediction of modulus is in turn obtained from multiphase porous media-based models of the processes, thus making physics-based texture prediction possible from process and product parameters. PARTICIPANTS: Not relevant to this project. TARGET AUDIENCES: Not relevant to this project. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.

Impacts
This is a complete departure from how texture is normally obtained after the fact from measurement, as opposed to being predictive. A general predictive framework for texture development will help the food product and process designer in several ways. First, through its unified approach, the framework will allow the designer to more effectively consider strategies of single and combination processes to produce a desired texture. Next, the quantitative approach will provide more precise understanding of the texture development, also helping to reach desired values more efficiently. Finally, the model-based approach can be part of computer-aided design for food processes where quality optimization can be considered using more complex process combinations.

Publications

• Thussu, S. and A. K. Datta and A. Dhall. 2011. A framework for simulation of texture development during drying and related processes. Submitted to the Institution of Chemical Engineers Journal Food and Bioproducts Processing.
• Thussu, S. and A. K. Datta. 2010. Texture prediction during deep frying: A mechanistic approach. Submitted to the Journal of Food Engineering.