FDTD Modeling and Simulation of Microwave Heating of in-Shell Eggs

Abstract

Considering microwaves as a viable alternative for the pasteurization of In-shell eggs, preliminary trials performed had confirmed that microwave at 2450 MHz can be successfully used to raise the temperature of in-shell eggs to the required pasteurization temperatures in a few minutes. Based on these trials a finite difference time domain (FDTD) model was developed using C language and MATLAB to simulate the E field and power distribution in lossy dielectric media like that of the egg components (egg white and yolk) taking into consideration the complex shape, dielectric properties and heterogeneous composition of the in-shell egg. This can be used to assist in the design and development of an industrial microwave inshell eggs pasteurization unit.

Comments and Corrections to "Fdtd Modeling and Simulation of Microwave Heating of in-Shell Eggs"

“…Therefore, in the scalar form of the Maxwell's equations, the presence of the coefficient 1/ √ ε 0 µ 0 is problematic. Moreover, the Maxwell's equations in this form are not available in Reference [8] of [1]. It is also not clear what the usefulness of the proposed form of the Maxwell's equations.…”

“…Otherwise, the electromagnetic power cannot induce the heat in the object (egg) as formulated in Equation (13). Moreover, according to Reference [10] for Equation (1) in [1], the Maxwell's equations must contain the generalized current term which is appropriate to this comment. In fact, the frequency domain representation of the Maxwell's equations for simple medium is not necessary in this example [1].…”

“…There is no relation between them. -Reference [8] in [1] is completely inadequate because it gives a Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) algorithm for narrowband structures. There is not this type of narrowband structure in the work of [1].…”

“…In the above paper [1], there are two classes of several errors. The first one is related to mistakes/misprints in equations and irrelevant references.…”

“…The second one is assertions about innovations, which were claimed as "for the first time" in the literature. In addition to them, the commentators want to attract attentions of the readers with an additional part of comments in order to make more useful and better understanding of the work in [1]. All details about these issues are discussed at following parts:…”