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OHMIC HEATING: A NOVEL THERMAL
FOOD PROCESSING TECHNIQUE

BY
ASHISH NIROULA
Table of content
 Introduction
 Objective
 Literature review
History
Instrumentation
Microbial inactivation by OH
Factors affecting OH
Current application
Future use
Advantages
Current limitation
 Conclusion
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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food Processing
Technique

Introduction
Ohmic heating is advanced thermal processing method wherein
the food material which serve as electrical resistor, is heated by
passing electricity through it.
Here heating occurs due to transformation of electrical energy
into heat inside the food material which causes rapid and uniform
heating.
 heating rate in the region of 1-100C/s can be observed during
ohmic heating.
It is also called joule heating, electrical resistance heating or
electro-heating.
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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Introduction contd…….. Processing Technique

 Basic principle
 It is based on joules effect of heating.
 Heating rate is directly proportional to electrical conductivity
and squire of applied electric field i.e.
q = E2 σ
Where,
E= electric field
σ= electrical conductivity
q= energy generation rate

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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique

Objectives
To introduce the importance of ohmic heating in food
processing
To understand the instrumentation of ohmic heating system
To understand the mechanism of microbial inactivation
To discuss the limitation of ohmic processing of food
To highlight briefly the future of ohmic processing system

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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique
Literature review
History
In early 20th century, electric pasteurization of milk was achieved
and 6 states in US had commercial pasteurizer.
Between 1950’s-70’s researchers were focused to use ohmic
heating for thawing and blanching process.
In 1988, The Electricity Council of Great Britain had patented a
continuous-flow ohmic heater and licensed the technology to APV
Baker.
Within the past two decades, new and improved materials and
designs for ohmic heating have become available.
Now, OH heater has been developed by APV baker using a
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 licensed design by EA Technology.
 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique
 Instrumentation
A ohmic heating processing system consists of
Heating chamber
Electrode
Power source

Power source
A three phase AC of voltage and frequency ranges from
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120-240V and 50-60Hz respectively are used .
Instrumentation contd…. Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique

Heating chamber
OH chamber is rectangular tank with two electrode mostly fixed on
length side.
Its dimension is determined by distance between electrode.
Commercial OH chamber are generally made from glass material,
stainless steel e.t.c.
Electrode
Previously graphite and aluminium electrodes were used, but they
are limited because of corrosion.
 recently APV ohmic process discovered that use food
compatible electrode i.e. silver electrode to eliminate
electrolytic problem.
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Instrumentation contd…..

metal Leaching( concn.In ppm)

silver 0.18

titanium 0.11
chromium 1.10

Table: metal satiability leaching data

Silver and titanium has least leaching property as compare to

chromium. But silver has greater antimicrobial property so,
silver electrodes are more preferably used in OH Equipment.
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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique

Mechanism of microbial inactivation

Two mechanism has been proposed
Thermal inactivation
Damage to outer membrane: loss of lipopolysaccharide,
release of periplasmic protein.
Damage to cytoplasmic membrane: lipoprotein denatures,
membrane lipid melts.
Ribosome, RNA and DNA degradation: degradation of 30s
ribosomal subunit , oxidation of DNA.
Protein denaturation:

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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Mechanism contd….. Processing Technique
Electroporation

 Electroporation is the formation of holes in a cell membrane due to

individual ion pressure, which cause change in permeability of cell
membrane.
 The low frequency used in ohmic heating (50-60Hz) allows cell
wall to build up charges and form pores.
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Mechanism contd… Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal
Food Processing Technique
S.N. D-values for K values for D-values for K value for
conventional heating conventional ohmic heating ohmic heating
heating
1
17.1 0.002245 14.2 0.002703
2
9.2 0.004172 8.5 0.004516
Fig: D- values and reaction rate constant for inactivation of B. subtilis spore
at 90C during ohmic and conventional heating.

 Thermal effect and electroporation combine during ohmic

heating to produce combine or synergy effect that reduce
processing time significantly and hence increase quality of
processed product.

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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique

 Factors to be consider during OH

Electrical conductivity
• Rate of heating is directly proportional to electrical conductivity.
• It strongly
affected by ionic content, moisture mobility,
physical structure and heating process
• Conductivity of food increase by 2-3 times over a temperature rise
of 120ºC.
Frequency
• In food with non cellular structure, heating rate increase with
increase in frequency.
• For food with cellular structure, initial rise in temperature
was obtained with low frequency
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Factors contd…… Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique

Voltage and Electric field

Rate of heat generation is directly proportional to squire of
applied voltage.
Heating time decrease approx. 78% when voltage gradient was
increased by 2V/cm.
Starch gelatinization
It cause decrease in EC and hence slow down the heating rate.

Fouling effect
As temperature increases, protein undergoes denaturation.
These denatured protein adhere to the electrode and hence
fouling occurs. This cause power to drop and electrode
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temperature increase rapidly.
 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
 Current Application Processing Technique
Meat processing:
The Cooking time of brine cured meat was reduced by great extent
(>0.5Kg/min).
Quicker and uniform thawing with good sensory properties can be
obtain by ohmic thawing of meat (Wang et al., 2002).

Milk product processing:

HTST ohmic pasteurization on quality of goat milk is comparable
with conventional pasteurization.
The physical and chemical properties of milk is not affected by ohmic
heating as compare with conventional heating.

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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Application contd..... Processing Technique

Fruit and vegetable processing;

Loss of solid during processing was reduced by great extent ( 50% in
some case) with ohmic pretreated potato cubes as compared to
conventional pretreatment.
Studies found that, ohmic blanching enhance water and sugar transfer,
since ohmic heating cause electroporation of cell membrane.

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 Future use Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique
Extraction
Beet dye extraction was enhances as much as 40% during ohmic
heating and is prop. To electric field.
Ohmically heated apple produce more juice than non-treated apple
during mechanical juice extraction.

Thawing
Food can be thawed rapidly from -30C to 30C and the time is reduced
by 1/4th to 1/5th tim.es that of conventional one.
Cell damage and softening were prevented by ohmic heating which
reduce drip loss.

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Future use contd…. Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique
Blanching
The quick process time and no dicing reduce solute losses during
blanching.
It was also found that ohmic blanching at 50V/cm give shortest
critical inactivation time of 54s with best color quality.
Fermentation
Ohmic heating of a fermentation vessel containing L. acidophilus
reduced the lag period of the bacteria
Waste water treatment
The lab scale ohmic heating system possessed good performance to
coagulate protein (60 %) from waste water.
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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
 Advantages of ohmic heating Processing Technique

High energy efficiency (90% electrical energy is converted into heat).

Rapid (1-100C/s) and uniform heating i.e. the product doesn’t
experience large temperature gradient.
Better nutrient and vitamins retention
No theoretical upper temperature limit.
No hot surface for heat transfer; less risk of surface fouling and burning
of the product.
Reduced maintenance cost because of the lack of moving parts.
 Process can simply be controlled with switch on and off.
Environmentally friendly.
Product with large size (15mm) and high concentration of solid
(up to 80%) can easily be processed.
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 Current limitation Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Processing Technique
Some of most important current drawbacks are as follows:-
Electrolysis of product and corrosion of electrode occur at low
frequency that may result in metal contamination to food which may
be hazardous at high concentration.
Too high installation and initial operating cost.
This system is unable to heat a product with high fat and oil and
dried food system. Since fats are non-conductive (due to absence of
water and ions), it may bypass current and slow heating may occurs.
 Runaway heating may occur at high temperature due to increase
in electrical conductivity.

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 Ohmic heating: A Novel Thermal Food
Conclusions Processing Technique

From above, following conclusion can be drawn;-

Ohmic heating is excellent method for processing both particulates and
liquid.
Some possible applications are blanching, extraction, thawing,
fermentation, peeling, e.t.c
High rate of heating during ohmic processing results in short processing
time and higher retention of nutrients and vitamins.
Electric fields in combination with heat produce synergy effect that
exert more pronounce effect to enzyme and microorganism.
 Ohmic heater has simple arrangements (basically consist of electrodes,
treatment chamber and power source).
Further research have to be carried out in order to identify cold-spot,
decrease cost and improve electrode so that electrolysis is prevent.
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