This paper presents an analysis of the energy consumption of a continuous flow ohmic heater (CFOH) with advanced process controls for heating operations in the food and drinks industry. The study was carried out by using operational data collected from a CFOH pilot plant that was designed and constructed at the National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering (NCEFE), Sheffield Hallam University. The CFOH is controlled by a PC and includes an onboard Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and a Human Machine Interface (HMI) so that it can be operated as a stand-alone unit with basic on/off and power setting control but without any advanced control features. The technical solution presented in this paper for heating foods demonstrates significant energy saving compared with conventional heating methods. Using the CFOH, the electric current generated in the food products by the Joule effect produces a rapid temperature increase with very high energy efficiency. This technique eliminates the low efficiency of heat transfer from the surface of vessels typically used to heat and cook food products. The analysis presented in this paper describes the energy consumption of the CFOH and compares the efficiency of the CFOH when different advanced process control techniques are used. Experimental results and analysis have shown that the CFOH can achieve an energy efficiency conversion of at least 87.9%. It has also shown that the energy conversion percentage can be increased by applying advanced controllers such as model predictive control (MPC) or adaptive model predictive control (AMPC).
Using moderate electric field (MEF) techniques, Ohmic heating (OH) provides the rapid and uniform heating of food products by applying electric fields to them. A range of theoretical Ohmic heating models have been studied by researchers, but model validation and comparisons using experimental data and model development using system identification techniques from experimental data have not been evaluated. In this work, numerical models, mathematical models, and system identification models for an MEF process were developed. The MEF models were developed and simulated using COMSOL and MATLAB/Simulink software. When simulated, the developed models showed a volumetric rise in the overall food temperature. It was found that upon the application of an electric field, the resultant temperature depends on the electrical conductivity, product temperature, and magnitude of the electric field. For this reason, a systematic approach was used to validate the developed models. Experimental data derived from a commercially available batch Ohmic heater from C-Tech Innovation were used to validate the simulated models. Validation, analysis, and model comparison were conducted to compare developed models with experimental data. The validated simulated model helped improve the understanding of the effect of different critical process parameters of foods with a range of initial conditions. The validated model could accurately predict the temperature of heating under varying electric fields and food products with different thermo–physical properties.
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