Inline RF Heating Channels With Cooling for Uniform Food Treatment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for heat treating flowable food products, particularly those with heterogeneous compositions, fail to efficiently couple energy, leading to uneven heating, local overheating, and quality loss, and are limited by maximum treatment temperatures and space constraints.
Innovation Solution
An apparatus comprising a channel system with alternating RF heating and cooling channel parts, along with a temperature holding system, to control temperature distribution and maintain a holding temperature, ensuring homogeneous heating and preventing overheating.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If continuous heating is used to heat treat flowable food products, then the heating process is simple, but local overheating and hot spots occur resulting in uneven heating
Solution Approach 1:
The heating system is divided into multiple heating zones along the channel, with each zone independently controllable. This segmentation allows different regions to be heated at different rates, preventing local overheating while ensuring complete heating of the food product throughout the channel.
Solution Approach 2:
The heating system uses periodic or pulsed heating cycles rather than continuous heating. By applying heat in controlled intervals and allowing cooling periods between zones, the system achieves uniform temperature distribution while maintaining overall heating efficiency.
2Reliability
If high treatment temperatures are used to achieve sterilization, then pasteurization effectiveness is improved, but product quality is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The heating process is divided into multiple temperature stages across different zones. The food product passes through progressively higher temperatures in sequential zones, achieving sterilization at the end while avoiding prolonged exposure to high temperatures that would degrade quality. Each zone maintains optimal temperature for its specific heating stage.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes temperature parameters along the channel length. Temperature increases gradually from one zone to the next, allowing the food product to be sterilized at high temperature for a short duration while minimizing quality degradation. The temperature profile is optimized to achieve microbial destruction without excessive thermal stress on the product.
3Manufacturing precision
If long heating channels are used to avoid overheating, then temperature uniformity is improved, but throughput is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The heating channel is segmented into multiple compact zones with independent temperature control. This allows the system to achieve uniform heating through coordinated control of multiple short sections rather than requiring a single long channel, thereby maintaining high throughput while ensuring temperature uniformity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses dynamic temperature control that adjusts heating intensity based on the specific requirements of each zone and the real-time temperature feedback. This dynamic adjustment allows efficient heating in compact spaces without requiring extended channel length, thus maintaining high production throughput.
4Device complexity
If single heating zone is used to simplify the system, then device complexity is reduced, but energy coupling efficiency is poor leading to heterogenous heating
Solution Approach 1:
The single heating zone is divided into multiple segments or zones along the channel. Each zone can be independently controlled to optimize energy coupling for its specific region. This segmentation improves overall energy efficiency by directing heat precisely where needed, avoiding energy waste, and ensuring homogeneous heating throughout the food product.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Achieves uniform heating of flowable food products, prevents local hot spots, maintains product quality, and allows higher treatment temperatures with a compact design, enhancing throughput and flexibility in channel configuration.
Implementation Method 1
The radiofrequency treatment system is configured to provide radiofrequency waves to the flowable food product in the RF heating channel parts
Implementation Method 2
the first cooling channel part is configured upstream of a second RF heating channel part, and the radiofrequency treatment system is configured to cool the flowable food product in the one or more cooling channel parts
Data Source
AI summary
A radiofrequency treatment system includes a first RF heating channel part upstream of a first cooling channel part, that is upstream of a second RF heating channel part. The radiofrequency treatment system provides radiofrequency waves to the flowable food product in the RF heating channel parts and cools the flowable food product in the cooling channel part, according to a temperature distribution. A temperature of the flowable food product in a cooling channel part downstream of a RF heating channel part is lower than the temperature of the flowable food product in the RF heating channel part upstream of that cooling channel part. Also, a temperature of the flowable food product in a RF heating channel part downstream of a set of a RF heating channel part and a cooling channel part is higher than of the flowable food product in the RF heating channel part of that set.