Abstract
Ohmic heating was revived in the 1980s, because it showed promise in particulate sterilization. Although that dream has not yet been fully realized, a number of advances have been made regarding fundamental understanding of the process. This has included fundamental fluid mechanics and heat transfer phenomena, microbial death kinetics, and the monitoring of temperatures, microbiological, and chemical changes within solids.
Interest in ohmic heating has resulted in its use being extended to a wide array of processes that show great promise in future applications. These applications have been termed moderate electric field (MEF) processes, since they involve varying degrees of heat input and are characterized by moderate, arbitrary waveform fields, which distinguish them from pulsed electric field (PEF) processing, Applications include the acceleration of fermentations; detection of starch gelatinization in solutions and pastes; pretreatments for drying, extraction, and expression; and reduction in water use during blanching.