Effect of Radiofrequency Heating on the Dielectric and Physical Properties of Eggs

Abstract

Abstract-Eggs are one of the most nutritious foods available in nature. This rich nutritive environment attracts microbes to invade, feed and multiply. Salmonella enteritidis is one such microbe that is highly pathogenic and is the causative agent for the disease salmonellosis. To ensure safety of eggs, processing them without affecting their unique physical properties is essential. In this study, the impact of radiofrequency (RF) heating on the dielectric properties (dielectric constant and dielectric loss factor) of the egg at varying temperatures (5 • C-56 • C) and frequency (10 MHz-3 GHz) is evaluated. This study on the dielectric parameters is essential to devise a better heating paradigm wherein there is minimal detrimental effect to the egg components. Based on the dielectric study, the heating process parameters were determined. The effect of such heat treatment on the physical properties viz. Viscosity, foam density, foam stability and turbidity of the egg white were also studied. This study was conducted to provide sufficient literature and experimental background for employing RF in pasteurization of in-shell eggs. This study showed that if careful process parameter optimization and meticulous equipment design is done, RF heating can be successfully employed to pasteurize in-shell eggs.

Temperature and moisture dependent dielectric properties of egg white powder

“…The trend of of EWP described above was observed at all the measured moisture contents from 5.5 to 13.4% d.b. However, a continuous decrease in throughout the measured radio and microwave frequencies for various food products was reported in literature by various researchers (Ahmed et al, 2007;Kannan et al, 2013;Ragni et al, 2007;Zhu et al, 2012Zhu et al, , 2014. At 20°C, the initially decreased in the frequency range of 10 to 350 MHz followed by a slight increase in the frequency of 350 to 3000 MHz ( Fig.2 (b)).…”

“…The liquid egg white whose moisture content is 88% w.b. (Ahn et al, 1997) has the many times higher than that of EWP (Kannan et al, 2013;Ragni et al, 2007;Wang et al, 2009). This may be attributed to the amounts of moisture present in the respective products.…”

“…At lower radio frequencies the ionic conduction plays a major role whereas at higher frequencies the dipolar orientation is predominant (Feng et al, 2002;Kannan et al, 2013;Lu et al, 1998;Ryynӓnen, 1995).…”

“…The dielectric properties are influenced by many factors such as frequency, temperature, moisture content and density of the food products ( Içier and Baysal, 2004;Nelson, 1965;1981;Ryynӓnen, 1995;Venkatesh and Raghavan, 2004). Dielectric properties data of liquid egg products (Dev et al, 2008;Kannan et al, 2013;Lu et al, 1998;Ragni et al, 2007;Wang et al, 2009;Zhang, 2013) and reconstituted EWP solutions (Ahmed et al, 2007) in the RF and MW frequency range are available. However, the dielectric properties data of EWP are not available in literature.…”

UWB Reactive Near Field Detection for Smart Packages: A Comprehensive Study Using Eggs

“…In addition, the filtering effect will lead to a change in group delay, which is defined as follows [25]:…”