SBIR Phase II: A Process to Extend the Shelf Life of Fruits, Vegetables, and Dairy at Ambient Temperature

SBIR第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是改善水果和蔬菜的储存和奶粉生产，目前在高温加工技术中需要添加剂和载体。创造新颖、高质量、货架稳定的食品是提高食品系统可持续性和可获得性的重要一步。 该团队寻求提高货架稳定性，减少对昂贵且有限的冷链的依赖。该技术在药物保存方面具有潜在的应用前景。此外，全球水资源短缺增加了对海水淡化技术的依赖，这些技术昂贵且对环境造成负担。该SBIR二期项目旨在进一步开发一种结合超临界流体和超声处理的混合分离技术，在15-55 °C的操作温度下立即分离溶质和溶剂，输入量低至1%固体。 该技术可生产出粒度为10 μ m至250 μ m的产品，并在不改变硬件的情况下实现不同的结晶。通过使用速度（超音速流代替热量作为相分离的动力学驱动力）产生连续分离效果，该技术克服了传统热干燥技术的最终产品质量限制，并具有扩大规模的潜力，具有吸引人的单位经济性。 这种方法比现有的方法更节能。具体而言，该技术可以生产纯水果，蔬菜和乳制品粉末，而无需预处理浓缩步骤，添加剂，载体试剂或热处理。 该方法还可用于开发用于气溶胶递送和/或增强的生物利用度的药物制剂，简化糖制造以产生共能产生，并潜在地提供成本有效的紧凑型脱盐系统以制造饮用水。第二阶段研究旨在通过计算流体动力学建模、定制制造和分析测试来设计、建造和优化可扩展的试验系统，以验证单元经济性和最终产品属性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this SBIR Phase II project is to improve fruit and vegetable storage and dairy powder production in situations that currently require additives and carrier agents during the high-temperature processing techniques. The creation of novel, high-quality, shelf-stable food products is an important step toward increasing food system sustainability and accessibility. The team seeks to increase shelf-stability, reducing reliance on the expensive and limited cold chain. This technology has potential applications for pharmaceutical drug preservation. Additionally, global water shortages have increased reliance on desalination technologies that are expensive and environmentally taxing. With the potential cost, scalability, and portability benefits of the proposed separation technology, there is further potential for use in water treatment.This SBIR Phase II project seeks to further develop a hybrid separation technology combining supercritical fluids and sonication to instantly separate a solute and solvent at operational temperatures of 15-55 °C, with inputs as low as 1% solids. The technology results in products with particles sizes of 10um to 250um and varying crystallization without hardware changes. By creating a continuous separation effect using velocity (supersonic flow as the kinetic driving force for phase separation instead of heat), the technology overcomes the end-product quality limitations of traditional thermal drying techniques, and has the potential to scale with attractive unit economics,. This method is significantly more energy efficient than existing methodologies. Specifically, the technology can produce pure fruit, vegetable, and dairy powders without preprocessing concentration steps, additives, carrier agents, or thermal treatment. The method may also be used to develop drug formulations for aerosol delivery and/or enhanced bioavailability, streamline sugar manufacturing to create co-energy generation, and potentially offer cost effective compact desalination systems to make drinkable water. The Phase II research seeks to design, construct, and optimize a scalable pilot system through computational fluid dynamics modeling, custom fabrication, and analytical testing to validate the unit economics and end-product attributes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.