Evaluation of computational modeling approaches for continuous flow microwave processing of multiphase food products (solid-liquid mixtures)

Evaluation of conventional thermal processing for multiphase food products (e.g., solid – liquid mixtures) is based on the temperature change of the fastest moving particle. This leads to over-processing of other particles. While a proper process design is required, experimental temperature measurement is a difficult task. Hence, computational approaches should be preferred for this purpose. Besides this challenge, conventional processes are to be replaced with novel approaches for sustainability. Microwave (MW) heating might be considered as a novel approach, but its application in such a process increases the complexities in the view of non-uniform temperature distribution. Therefore, the objective of this study was to computationally evaluate the computational modeling approaches for determining the temperature distribution during MW processing of multiphase (solid – liquid mixture) food products for process design purpose. A commercial finite element solver was used for this purpose, and a process design study for a continuous flow MW process was also introduced. Pros and cons of particle tracing and moving mesh approaches were discussed, and an improved modeling approach was presented for process design of multi-particle continuous flow MW processing. The results of this study are expected to provide detailed information from the idea to the industrial scale application due to the designed process parameters.