Modification of Food Systems by Ultrasound

Abstract

This review describes the mechanism, operation, and recent potential applications of ultrasound in various food systems, as well as the physical and chemical effects of ultrasound treatments on the conservation and modification of different groups of food. Acoustic energy has been recognized as an emerging technology with great potential for applications in the food industry. The phenomenon of acoustic cavitation, which modifies the physical, chemical, and functional properties of food, can be used to improve existing processes and to develop new ones. The combination of ultrasonic energy with a sanitizing agent can improve the effect of microbial reduction in foods and, thereby, their quality. Finally, it is concluded that the use of ultrasound in food is a very promising area of research; however, more research is still needed before applying this technology in a wider range of industrial sectors.

Time matters when ultrasonicating beef: The best time for tenderness is not the best for reducing microbial counts

“…Ultrasound exposure time was 0, 10, 20, or 40 min. Samples were directly placed in the water to assure that the possible effect was caused by the cavitation phenomenon, a physical plastic layer could attenuate or modify the effect of the cavitation inside the pack (Carrillo‐Lopez, Alarcon‐Rojo, Luna‐Rodriguez, & Reyes‐Villagrana, ; Garcia‐Galicia et al, ). To ensure an even exposure to ultrasonic waves, the steak was turned at the middle of the ultrasonication time.…”

Mechanism of ultrasound assisted nucleation during freezing and its application in food freezing process

“…As shown in Figure 8, the clouds of cavitation bubbles on the surface of the sphere are the main factor generating the heating effect. [97] Kiani et al [98] evaluated that the rate of heat transfer between a submerged object and cooling medium was accelerated by the application of ultrasound irradiation. In addition, the impact of ultrasound irradiation on heat transfer was unconcerned with the ball diameter.…”

Exploring ligand binding pathways on proteins using hypersound–accelerated molecular dynamics

“…To simulate hypersound shock waves with protein-size wavelengths, their frequency was set to 625 GHz (corresponding to a period of 1.6 ps ) ( Fig. 1A), which is more than 100 times higher than that of currently used ultrasound waves 17 . The hypersound-perturbed MD simulation of liquid water at 298 K showed the generation and propagation of a high-density region ( Fig.…”

“…The increase in the frequency factor could be attributed to enhanced ligand diffusion (Table 1) 17 , which would increase the collision frequency of the ligand with the protein pocket, while enhancing the thermal motions of the solvent molecules did not result in increased ligand diffusion and an acceleration of the ligand binding process (the Supplementary section 1.8). In addition, the generation of local highenergy/pressure regions in the solvent leads to an increase in the effective temperature 15 ; however, the "macroscopic" temperature of the system remained unchanged at 298 K (Supplementary Table 1).…”

“…The present acceleration method code is publicly available (see the Code Availability section), can be implemented on standard high-performance computers, and is suitable for parallel computing because performing multiple independent simulations in parallel enables the sampling of a higher number of binding events and thus produces an improved statistical description of the process under study. Furthermore, the hypersound irradiation modeled in the simulations is not a ctitious computational procedure, but a real physical process, even though hypersound waves of molecular (several nanometers) wavelength have not yet been realized 17 , which currently hampers the experimental assessment of its impact. Further applications of the present technique to model other biomolecular (e.g., protein conformational changes and protein-protein interactions) and non-biomolecular (e.g., phase transitions of materials) processes are required to assess its general effectiveness in modeling slow dynamic events.…”