Coupled electrical-fluid model of pulsed electric field treatment in a model food system

A coupled electrical-fluid model of a pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment is presented. The modeling of PEF food treatment to date has been limited to a separate study of the electric field distribution and the product flow. A model was developed that couples the electric field and fluid dynamics analysis. The main feature of the model is that parameters vital for the process control, i.e. the product flow and heating and the electric field distribution in a PEF chamber, can be determined self-consistently. Comparison between model predictions and experimental measurements were made for a laboratory scale, co-field treatment chamber configuration of a continuous flow-through PEF unit. The predicted product temperatures downstream of the treatment chamber were in good agreement with the observed temperature for a range of conditions considered. This work is a first step towards developing a reliable tool for the optimization of the PEF treatment chamber geometry.