Low carbon Food Processing with Solid State Microwave Technologies

微波是公认的干热源，在家庭和一些工业应用中被广泛使用。然而，基于磁控管的传统微波受到不均匀加热的影响，而且在常见的烘焙产品中，如面包(https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2017.1408564).，很难形成硬皮。新兴的固态微波技术有可能克服传统磁控管系统的许多缺点，因为它们能够提供均匀的加热和调节辐射强度，以满足特定的产品特性(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2018.04.009).由于固态微波技术的出现时间较短，迄今仅开展了有限的研究，以确定其性能特点，并量化其相对于传统磁控技术的质量和能效优势。假设：与传统的电阻、气体或磁控微波加热相比，固态微波食品处理(SSMP)可以提供更均匀的加热、更好的产品感官和营养属性、更低的能源消耗和碳足迹，并可以为家庭、商业和工业烹饪和烘焙提供一条脱碳途径。主要目标：a.进行全面的文献综述，深入了解家庭、服务和大量工业应用中的烘焙过程，通过在实验室进行广泛的测试，确定研究成果的基准，并将SSMO的性能与传统技术(电阻、气体和微波-磁控炉)进行表征和比较。B.开展详细的调查，以探索SSMOS的营养保持优势，将新鲜蔬菜和水果的“温度敏捷性”受控脱水成零食形式，而不是传统的脱水过程(对流加热、冷冻干燥)。将分析不同脱水方法对产品的营养品质、结构(电子显微镜)和质地(脆度、硬度、咀嚼性)的影响。对SSMO进行研究，以重现对流加热过程中面包制作过程中发生的物理化学变化，例如结构的热定形、水分损失、褐变和面包皮的形成，以开发出具有柔软和弹性的面包屑质地、烘烤(颜色和丙烯酰胺评价)、松脆的面包皮(电子显微镜和质地分析)和烘焙香味(风味和香气分析)的产品，这些都是传统微波炉很难实现的。使用适当的软件和技术，如具有射频建模能力的多物理CFD，对固态微波食品加工进行广泛的模拟，以验证和校准来自实验方案的数据，并用于调查重要的设计和控制参数对产品质量和能源消耗的影响。利用来自测试和建模的数据得出结论，说明与传统的烘焙和烹饪方法相比，SSMO能够以更低的能量投入提供更好的产品质量，并就进一步改进的领域和方法提出建议。

Microwaves are well-established as sources of dry heat and are widely used in the home and some industrial applications. Traditional microwaves, based on magnetrons, however, suffer from non-uniform heating, and crust formation is difficult in commonly baked products such as bread (https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2017.1408564). Emerging solid-state microwave technology has the potential to overcome many of the disadvantages of conventional magnetron systems through their ability to provide uniform heating and modulate radiation intensity to satisfy specific product characteristics (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2018.04.009). Due their very recent emergence, only limited research has been carried out to-date, on establishing their performance characteristics and quantification of their quality and energy efficiency advantages over conventional magnetron technologies.Hypothesis: Our hypothesis is that solid state microwave food processing (SSMP) can provide more uniform heating, better product sensorial and nutritional attributes and lower energy consumption and carbon footprint compared to conventional electrical resistance, gas or magnetron microwave heating and can provide a route to decarbonisation of domestic, commercial and industrial cooking and baking. Main objectives:a. Undertake a comprehensive literature review to develop in-depth understanding of baking processes in domestic, service and high volume industrial applications to enable characterisation and comparison of the performance of the SSMO against conventional technologies (electric resistance, gas and microwave-magnetron ovens) through extensive testing in the laboratory to establish benchmarks for the research outputs. b. Undertake detailed investigations to explore the nutrient-retentive advantages of SSMOs for "temperature agile" controlled dehydration of fresh vegetables and fruit into snack forms against conventional dehydration processes (convection heating, freeze drying). Analyses of the effect of different dehydration methods on the nutritional qualities, structure (electron microscopy) and texture (crispiness, hardness, chewiness) of the product will be performed.c. Undertake research on the ability of SSMO to recreate the physicochemical changes that happen during convection heating for bread making, such us the thermal setting of the structure, moisture loss, browning and crust formation in order to develop a product with a soft and elastic crumb texture, toasty (colour and acrylamide evaluation) and crunchy crust (electron microscopy and texture analysis) and roasty aroma (flavour and aroma analysis) which are very difficult to achieve with conventional microwave ovens. d. Extensive simulation of solid state microwave food processing using appropriate software and techniques such as Multiphysics CFD with Radio Frequency modelling capabilities to be validated and calibrated with data from the experimental programme and used to investigate the influence of important design and control parameters on product quality and energy consumption. e. Use the data from the tests and modelling to draw conclusions on the potential of SSMOs to provide improved product quality with lower energy input compared to conventional baking and cooking approaches and provide recommendations on areas and approaches for further improvement.