UTEC - Purdue Teams conclude a research project

Research Project: High Intensity of Pulse Electric Field might be the revolutionary solution for industrial processing of Liquid food

Thermal pasteurization process has been applied to preserve liquid food with many side effect of changing the nutritive value and organoleptic properties of the processed material. Therefore, pulsed electric field (PEF) is an alternative novel method to only consume little energy such that introduce smaller colour, flavour, or nutritious factor losses during the treatment process. The team at UTEC led by Dr. Lei Zhang and Jorge Anghelo Estrada Flores has been working on the property alternation of liquid food under PEF for a year before and after the treatment. Closely collaborating with Purdue team of Prof. Raji, they have found the little temperature rise due to little input energy by pulses, the majority of bacteria such as Lactobacillus were eliminated under 30kV/cm. And other electric properties such as conductivity and acidity also were recorded for further modelling of electric circuit of liquid food. Those findings would contribute the future emerging industrial process and also theoretical analysis.

During the week between 23rd and 27th of April, the UTEC-Purdue Teams had reunited at the West Lafayette, campus Purdue University to conclude the research project and discussed the future work on it. A few meetings were held to the lab related and constructive exchange of opinions was warmly developed. The research is confirmed to attend the presentation session in June for 2018 Polytechnic Summit. We are looking forward to sharing more excited results with all the scientists and audience there.

During the trip, the team also had a meeting with the UTEC exchange students, Fabricio Saldaña and Manuel Mar, who are students of UTEC Energy department. Now, they are working on their thesis topic in Purdue and ready to finish their exchange program soon.

The visit successfully promoted the complementary and cooperation between the two universities in scientific research. On this basis, the two schools and two laboratories will further explore their potential to achieve the sustainable development of the project.

Dr. Lei Zhang

Energy Deparment - UTEC