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

SBIR二期项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是，在目前高温加工技术中需要添加剂和载体剂的情况下，改善水果和蔬菜的储存和乳制品粉的生产。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及性的重要一步。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，这些技术既昂贵又对环境造成负担。由于所提出的分离技术具有潜在的成本、可扩展性和可移植性优势，因此在水处理中有进一步的应用潜力。SBIR二期项目旨在进一步开发一种结合超临界流体和超声的混合分离技术，在15-55°C的工作温度下，在低至1%固体的情况下，快速分离溶质和溶剂。该技术的结果是，产品颗粒尺寸为10um至250um，结晶变化不需要硬件改变。通过利用速度（超音速流代替热量作为相分离的动力）创造连续分离效果，该技术克服了传统热干燥技术对最终产品质量的限制，并且具有具有吸引力的单位经济规模的潜力。这种方法比现有的方法节能得多。具体来说，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、载体剂或热处理。该方法还可用于开发用于气溶胶输送和/或增强生物利用度的药物配方，简化糖生产以产生联合能源，并可能提供具有成本效益的紧凑型海水淡化系统以制造饮用水。第二阶段的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、构建和优化可扩展的试点系统，以验证单元经济性和最终产品属性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.