Blackwell Science, LtdOxford, UKJFPEJournal of Food Process Engineering0145-8876Copyright 2005 by Food & Nutrition Press, Inc., Trumbull, Connecticut.

282181203Original Article CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK

J.A.W. GUT

ET AL.

CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK:

THERMOPHYSICAL PROPERTIES AND PROCESS SIMULATION

JORGE ANDREY WILHELMS GUT1, JOSÉ MAURÍCIO PINTO1,2,5,

ANA LÚCIA GABAS3 and JAVIER TELIS-ROMERO4
1
Department of Chemical Engineering
University of São Paulo
São Paulo, SP, 05508-900
Brazil
2
Othmer Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences and Engineering
Polytechnic University
Brooklyn, NY 11201
3
Department of Food Engineering
University of São Paulo
Pirassununga, SP, 13635-900
Brazil
4
Department of Food Engineering and Technology
Universidade Estadual Paulista
São José do Rio Preto, SP, 15054-000
Brazil

Accepted for Publication December 22, 2004

ABSTRACT

This article presents empirical correlations to predict the density, spe-

cific heat, thermal conductivity and rheological power–law parameters of
liquid egg yolk over a temperature range compatible with its industrial ther-
mal processing (0–61C). Moreover, a mathematical model for a pasteurizer
that takes into account the spatial variation of the overall heat transfer
coefficient throughout the plate heat exchanger is presented, as are two of its
simplified forms. The obtained correlations of thermophysical properties are
applied for the simulation of the egg yolk pasteurization, and the obtained
temperature profiles are used for evaluating the extent of thermal inactiva-
tion. A detailed simulation example shows that there is a considerable devia-
tion between the designed level of heat treatment and that this is predicted
through process simulation. It is shown that a reliable mathematical model,
combined with specialized thermophysical property correlations, provide a

5
Corresponding author. J.M. Pinto, Othmer Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences
and Engineering, Polytechnic University, Six Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, U.S.A.
TEL: 718 260-3569; FAX: 718 260-3125; EMAIL: jpinto@poly.edu

Journal of Food Process Engineering 28 (2005) 181–203. All Rights Reserved.

© Copyright 2005, Blackwell Publishing 181
182 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

more accurate design of the pasteurization equipment that ensures effective

inactivation, while preserving nutritional and sensorial characteristics.

INTRODUCTION

The egg industry represents an important segment of the food ingredient

market, with a large supply of egg derivatives such as dried, frozen and liquid
egg-products that are used as ingredients in various food formulations.
Approximately 30% of all eggs sold in the U.S.A. in 2002 were processed
(AEB 2003), thus requiring shell cleaning and removal, filtering, blending,
pasteurization and aseptic filling, freezing, refrigeration or dehydration
(ASHRAE 1994). Pasteurization is a heat treatment process that targets the
inactivation of harmful microorganisms and undesirable enzymes. The pro-
cess parameters must be carefully designed to achieve the desired level of heat
treatment with minimal damage to the lipoprotein components of the liquid
food. For instance, the main function of the pasteurization of the liquid egg
is to inactivate Salmonella senftenberg, but it should be observed that egg
whites are more sensitive to high temperatures than whole eggs or yolk and
can easily coagulate because of temperature rise (ASHRAE 1994). Hamid-
Samimi et al. (1984) studied the influence of thermal treatment on the func-
tional properties of liquid whole egg for determining practical processing
limits and verified that protein coagulation plays an important role for tem-
perature conditions above 60C.
The thermophysical properties (TPPs) of liquid egg yolk over a wide
range of temperature and water content are of utmost importance for evaluat-
ing, designing and modeling heat transfer processes in the egg products
industry such as refrigeration, freezing, heating, pasteurization and drying.
However, data are very scarce in the literature.
This article presents methods for obtaining experimental data and sim-
plified empirical correlations to predict the specific heat, thermal conductivity,
rheological parameters for the power–law model (characterizing flow
behavior) and density of egg yolk at a temperature range that is compatible
with the industrial thermal processing of liquid egg (0–61C).
Plate heat exchangers (PHEs) are extensively used for the pasteurization
of liquid foods such as liquid egg because of their high thermal effectiveness,
good flow distribution and simple maintenance. The PHE is composed mainly
of three sections, namely, heating, cooling and regeneration. The cold raw
product is preheated in the regeneration section before being heated up to the
pasteurization temperature in the heating section. After this section, there is
a thermally insulated holding tube that is designed to have the precise length
required for the desired extent of thermal treatment residence time. In the
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 183

regeneration section, the returning hot pasteurized product is used to preheat

the incoming raw product while being precooled before being cooled to a
suitable storage temperature in the cooling section.
The pasteurization process is usually designed by assuming that the
thermal inactivation occurs exclusively inside the holding tube at constant
temperature. By neglecting the thermal inactivation that occurs inside the PHE
and the temperature drop at the holding tube, the length of the holding tube
may be overdesigned. Furthermore, thermal degradation or overprocessing
may occur in practice. Using reliable TPP correlations for the simulation of
the pasteurizer allows the determination of the extent of process thermal
inactivation throughout the pasteurizer. Moreover, the simulation results can
be used to design the pasteurization equipment more efficiently to ensure the
inactivation of harmful microorganisms while minimizing the thermal degra-
dation of food nutrients and sensorial characteristics.
The objective of this work is to propose approaches for evaluating the
thermal inactivation in the pasteurization processes of egg yolk. The TPP
correlations for egg yolk are obtained and applied to the simulation of a
pasteurization process for obtaining the temperature profile of the egg yolk
throughout the pasteurizer and for evaluating the level of heat treatment. The
distribution of the overall heat transfer coefficient along the exchanger sec-
tions is also obtained. Moreover, simplified forms of the mathematical model
(assuming constant overall heat transfer coefficient and pure countercurrent
flow conditions) are also tested.
The structure of this article is as follows: First, the experimental pro-
cedure and results are presented, leading to the empirical TPP correlations of
the egg yolk. Furthermore, the mathematical model of the pasteurizer is
presented; a simulation example of the pasteurization process is shown, and
the results are discussed.

THERMOPHYSICAL PROPERTIES

Materials
The liquid egg yolk for this study was provided directly from the pro-
cessing line of an egg-breaking plant. Measurements were made within 2–5 h
from the time of breaking, during which the yolk was kept at 2C. The moisture
content of the initial batch was determined in a vacuum oven (48 h, 333 K),
resulting in 54.04% moisture (wet basis). The pH values of the samples were
measured with a pHmeter (Marconi, São Paulo, Brazil), and a mean value of
6.4 was obtained. The egg yolk was stirred very slowly at room temperature
for 3 min to reduce the incorporation of air and was degassed with a centrifuge
(Phoenix, São Paulo, Brazil).
184 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

Apparatus and Experimental Procedure

The density of the liquid egg products at different temperatures was
determined by applying the pycnometric method (Constenla et al. 1989) in
triplicate. The sample, kept in a 25-mL standard volumetric pycnometer, was
weighed using an AB204 analytical balance (Mettler Toledo, Columbus, CH)
with a given uncertainty of ±0.1 mg. The pycnometer was previously cali-
brated with distilled water at each temperature range studied.
Both heat capacity and thermal conductivity were determined according
to the method described by Bellet et al. (1975). The equipment is composed
of an MA-184 water thermostatic bath (Marconi, São Paulo, Brazil) with a
temperature stability of ±0.05 K and a cylindrical cell with the liquid sample
filling the annular space between two concentric cylinders. The cell was
immersed in the thermostatic bath, and cell calibration was performed using
distilled water and glycerin. The center of the inner cylinder contains an
electric heater. The heat capacity can be obtained under unsteady state condi-
tions, and thermal conductivity can be obtained under steady state conditions.
Details of this method, cell calibration and experimental tests can be found in
Telis-Romero et al. (1998, 1999) and Minim et al. (2002). The power input
to the heater resistance was supplied by an MPS-3006D laboratory DC power
supply (Minipa, São Paulo, Brazil) that adjusts the electrical current with
0.05% stability. An HP data logger, model 75.000-B, with an HP–IB interface
and an HP PC running a data acquisition program, monitored the temperatures
with an accuracy of 0.6 K.
Rheological measurements were carried out using a Rheotest 2.1
(MLW, Medingen, Germany) viscometer, Searle type, equipped with a
coaxial cylinder sensor system (radii ratio: 1.04). A thermostatic bath was
used to control the working temperature within the range of 4–60C. Shear
stress is obtained by multiplying torque readings by the viscometer param-
eter, whereas shear rate, g˙ , is obtained according to Krieger and Elrod
(1953). The obtained shear rate range was 70.2 £ g˙ £ 512.4 per second.
The viscometer was previously calibrated using two Newtonian fluids with
well known rheological properties (ethylene glycol and chlorobenzene) at a
wide range of temperatures.

Results and Discussion

The density (r), specific heat (Cp), thermal conductivity (l) and rheo-
logical parameters (consistency index, K and flow behavior index, n) of liquid
egg yolk were obtained in triplicate at eight selected temperatures varying
from 0.4 to 60.8C, totaling 24 experimental values for each property. The
experimental data are presented in Figs. 1–3. Linear functions were fitted to
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 185

1134 2800

2780

1133
2760

2740

1132

Cp (J/kg·C)
r (kg/m3)

2720

2700
1131

2680

2660
1130

2640

1129 2620
0 10 20 30 40 50 60

T (C)

FIG. 1. EXPERIMENTAL DENSITY AND SPECIFIC HEAT OF EGG YOLK

(—) Fitted correlations on Table 1.

represent the temperature dependence of density, specific heat and thermal

conductivity. It can be seen in Figs. 1 and 2 that experimental data can be well
correlated by linear functions, as was observed by Telis-Romero et al. (1998)
for orange juice data. Typical nonlinear functions were fitted for the rheolog-
ical parameters, and a good agreement was obtained, as shown in Figs. 2 and
3. The obtained correlations are presented in Table 1.
For the temperature range studied, the egg yolk exhibited pseudoplastic
(shear-thinning) non-Newtonian behavior. As shown in Fig. 4, the flow
curves could be well adjusted by the Ostwald-de Waele model, also known
as the power–law model, where the shear stress is modeled as t = K ◊ g˙ n
(Toledo 1999). The flow behavior index, n, varied between 0.840 and 0.874
(see Fig. 3), and the consistency index, K, varied from 0.10 to 2.26 Pa·sn
and, in the same way as the Newtonian viscosity, decreased with higher
temperature (see Fig. 2). The observed behavior can be attributed mainly
because of the presence of phosphate and lipoproteins and other complex
186 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

3.0 0.395

0.390
2.5

0.385
2.0

l (W/m·C)
0.380
K (Pa·sn)

1.5

0.375

1.0
0.370

0.5
0.365

0.0 0.360
0 10 20 30 40 50 60

T (C)

FIG. 2. EXPERIMENTAL CONSISTENCY INDEX (POWER–LAW MODEL) AND THERMAL

CONDUCTIVITY OF EGG YOLK
(—) Fitted correlations on Table 1.

TABLE 1.
THERMOPHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF LIQUID EGG YOLK (0 < T < 61C)

Property Correlation R2 Units

Density r = 1.132 ¥ 103 - 0.057·T 0.9960 r: kg/m3; T: C

Specific heat Cp = 2.6290 ¥ 103 + 2.39·T 0.9996 Cp: J/kg·K; T: C
Thermal conductivity l = 0.390 + 4.0 ¥ 10-4·T 0.9914 l: W/m·K; T: C
44,195 ˆ
Consistency index (power–law)* K = 8.182 ◊10 -9 ◊ expÊ 0.9985 K: Pa·sn; T: K
Ë R ◊T ¯
Behavior index (power–law)* n = 0.277·T0.198 0.8466 n: dimensionless; T: K

* Valid for shear rate between 70.2 and 512.4 per second.
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 187

0.90

0.89

0.88

0.87

0.86

0.85
n

0.84

0.83

0.82

0.81

0.80
0 10 20 30 40 50 60

T (C)

FIG. 3. EXPERIMENTAL FLOW BEHAVIOR INDEX (POWER–LAW MODEL) OF EGG YOLK

(—) Fitted correlation on Table 1.

molecules. According to Damodaran (1996), high molecular weight soluble

polymers such as these proteins greatly increase viscosity even at very low
concentrations.
A power function was used to represent the temperature dependence of
the behavior index, n, because a constant value would poorly fit the experi-
mental data as can be seen in Fig. 3. For correlating the consistency index, an
Arrhenius-type function was used, permitting the calculation of the activation
energy for flow, Ea = 44,195 J/mol. The magnitude of Ea is comparable with
values reported by Telis-Romero et al. (2001) for coffee extract and by Vélez-
Ruiz and Barbosa-Cánovas (1998) for concentrated milk. Large values of
activation energy indicate that there is a strong effect of temperature on the
considered parameter (Holdsworth 1971).
The obtained rheological parameters are in fair agreement with the values
presented by Landfeld et al. (2002) for the egg yolk, particularly for the
temperature of approximately 45C. Landfeld et al. (2002) reported a variation
188 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

450
T (C)

400 0.4

350

300

250
t (Pa)

8.9
200

150
20.3

100
28.4
37.8
50 48.2
55.2
60.8
0
0 100 200 300 400 500
g (s–1)

FIG. 4. FLOW CURVES ADJUSTED WITH THE POWER–LAW MODEL

from 0.860 to 0.980 for n and from 0.072 to 0.436 Pa·sn for K in the temper-
ature range of 5–65C (17 < g˙ < 810 per second).

PASTEURIZATION PROCESS

Mathematical Modeling
The fundamental structure of the pasteurizer comprises the three sections
of the PHE, the heating and cooling circuits and the holding tube, as shown
in Fig. 5. The distributed-U model of a PHE, with generalized configurations
presented by Gut and Pinto (2003a), was used to generate the temperature
profiles and the distribution of the overall heat exchanger coefficient through-
out the PHE sections. The model assumes steady-state operation, no heat
losses, one-dimensional incompressible plug flow, no heat transfer in the
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 189

Diversion valve

PHE sections

Pasteurized
product

Holding Tube
Cooling Regeneration heating

Heating

Raw Regeneration
product Cooling

x b
L Rport x¢, t
x

x + sx L
Ti – 1 Ti Ti + 1 L
x

Wi Rport
w Ti
0
i–1 i i +1 Channel w

FIG. 5. SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATION OF THE PASTEURIZER

direction of flow, uniform flow distribution among the channels, perfect mix-
ture at the end of every pass and no phase changes. A section of the PHE is
represented by a sequence of channels, numbered from one to the correspond-
ing number of channels (NC). The PHE model was first used to represent each
section separately before generating the complete model of the pasteurizer,
which includes the holding tube model. Next, the main features of the model
are shown; details and case studies are found in Gut and Pinto (2003a).
On the basis of the aforementioned assumptions, the energy balance
applied to an arbitrary channel, i, of the PHE, yields Eq. (1), where Ti(x) is
190 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

the fluid temperature; x is the coordinate tangential to the flow as in Fig. 5

(0 £ x £ L); si indicates the flow direction (si = +1 if the flow follows the x
direction and si = -1 otherwise); w is the channel width; F is the plate area
enlargement factor; Wi is the channel mass flow rate and Cpi(x) is the fluid
specific heat.

dTi si ◊ w ◊ F
= ◊ [Ui -1 ◊ (Ti -1 - Ti ) + Ui ◊ (Ti +1 - Ti )], 1 £ i £ NC (1)
dx Wi ◊ Cpi

Variable Ui(x) is the overall heat transfer coefficient between channels i and
i + 1, as defined in Eq. (2), where hi(x) is the convective heat transfer coeffi-
cient; eplate is the plate thickness; lplate is the thermal conductivity of the plate
and Rfhot and Rfcold are the hot and cold side fouling factors, respectively. Note
that Ui = 0 for i = 0 and i = NC in Eq. (1).

1 1 1 e plate
= + + + Rfhot + Rfcold , 1 £ i £ ( NC - 1) (2)
Ui hi hi +1 l plate

Convective heat transfer coefficient h relies on correlations such as

Nui = a1 ◊ Reia 2 ◊ Pri a 3 . Usual values for the empiric parameters a1, a2 and a3 are
presented in the works of Shah and Focke (1988), Saunders (1988) and
Mehrabian et al. (2000) for various plate patterns.
If the fluid has non-Newtonian behavior, Rei(x) and Pri(x) should be
calculated using the generalized viscosity (mg) defined in Eq. (3) for the
power–law rheological model, where the mean velocity inside the channel is
v = W/(N·b·w·r). The geometric parameters u and x are presented by Delplace
and Leuliet (1995) for cylindrical ducts of arbitrary cross section, where x can
be obtained from the Fanning friction factor curve for laminar isothermal flow,
f = 2·x/Re, and u can be approximated by u = 24/x. For the case of a channel
with circular cross section, x = 8 and u = 3. The shear rate at the plate wall
(g˙ wall), also known as “flow characteristic” in the work of Metzner and Reed
(1955), can be evaluated with Eq. (4).
n -1 n
Ê vˆ Ê u ◊ n +1 ˆ
m g = K ◊ x n-1 ◊ Á ˜ ◊ (3)
Ë De ¯ Ë (u + 1) ◊ n ¯

Ê v ˆ Ê u ◊ n +1 ˆ
g˙ wall = x ◊ Á ˜ ◊ (4)
Ë De ¯ Ë (u + 1) ◊ n ¯

Boundary conditions for the temperatures of the channels are required to solve
the system of differential equations obtained from Eq. (1). The boundary
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 191

TABLE 2.
THERMAL BOUNDARY CONDITIONS FOR THE PHE MODELING

Boundary condition Equation form

Fluid inlet: The temperature at the entrance of Ti x = 0 or L = Tinlet , i Πfirst pass

the first pass is the same as of the stream inlet.
N
1
Change of pass: The perfect mixture of fluid Ti x = 0 or L =
N
 Tj x = 0 or L , i Œ current pass
occurs between passes. j Œprevious
pass
N
1
Fluid outlet: The outlet temperature results from Toutlet =
N
ÂT j x = 0 or L
a perfect mixture after the last pass. j Œlast
pass

conditions represent the physical connection among the channels and passes.
The three possible boundary condition equations are presented in Table 2.
In summary, the distributed-U mathematical thermal modeling of a PHE
section is defined by Eqs. (1) and (2), the equations in Table 2 (boundary
conditions), the Nusselt number correlations for the hot and cold sides and
the equations for the temperature dependence of the TPPs of the fluids:
Cpi(Ti(x)), li(Ti(x)), Ki(Ti(x)) and ni(Ti(x)) for 1 £ i £ NC. Note that the average
values for the fluid densities are required because incompressible flow is
assumed. It can be verified in Fig. 1 that the density of the egg yolk has a
weak dependence on the temperature, with a variation of only 0.3% for the
studied temperature range.
The variation of the fluid bulk temperature in the holding tube, because
of the heat losses to the ambient, is represented by Eq. (5) for fully developed
flow (Incropera and De Witt 1990), where Din the is the internal tube diameter
and Utube is the overall heat transfer coefficient between the bulk fluid and the
ambient based on the internal tube surface.

dTtube Utube ◊ (Tamb - Ttube ) ◊ p ◊ Din

= (5)
dy W ◊ Cp

The smaller the temperature variation, the weaker is the dependence of the
right-side term of Eq. (5) on the tube length. As a consequence, a linear
temperature variation is expected.
Finally, the mathematical modeling of the pasteurizer consists of the
thermal modeling of the three sections, the temperature boundary conditions
to represent the connection among sections, the model of the holding tube and
the specifications for mass flow rates and inlet temperatures of the product,
192 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

heating and cooling streams. The model consists of a nonlinear system of

differential and algebraic equations, which needs to be solved by numerical
methods such as the method of finite differences.

Thermal Treatment Criteria

In Eq. (6), F, which is the integrated lethality or the F-value, is employed
for evaluating the level of heat treatment by integrating the lethality function,
Lt(t), over the process residence time, q (Toledo 1999; Lewis and Heppell
2000). In Eq. (6), z is the Z-value for the inactivation kinetics.

q q T ( t ) - Tref

FTref = Ú Lt ◊ dt = Ú 10 z
dt (6)
0 0

The temperature profiles obtained from the pasteurizer simulation and average
flow velocities in the PHE channels and in the holding tube are further used
for obtaining the temperature distribution of the product throughout the pas-
teurizer, T(t). The F-value can then be calculated through Eq. (6).
In this work, plug flow is assumed for the calculation of the integrated
residence time, and only the vertical flow inside the PHE is considered, taking
into account the length between the centers of the plate ports for determining
the fluid path, as shown in Fig. 5. It is important to note that the channel
temperature profile obtained from the PHE model (Ti(x)) in Eq. (1) corre-
sponds to the effective plate length for heat transfer, L; thus, there is no
temperature variation in the plate ports as can be seen in the sample tem-
perature profile in Fig. 5, where the channel mean residence time is
qc = (L + 2·Rport)/v. The fluid path through the PHE passes and the holding
tube determines the total residence time for the pasteurization process. For
the experimental determination of the residence time during egg yolk pasteur-
ization, refer to the work of Landfeld et al. (2002). Concerning the modeling
of the holding tube lethality for laminar flow, refer to the works of Teixeira
and Manson (1983) and Jung and Fryer (1999).

Simplified Forms of the Mathematical Model

In addition to the distributed-U model, two simplified forms of the
pasteurizer model are tested in this work, as follows:

Constant-U Model. A constant value for the overall heat transfer coeffi-
cient is assumed for each PHE section, which is obtained from Eq. (2) using
average convective heat transfer coefficients. The average TPPs are calculated
as the arithmetic mean between the inlet and outlet conditions of each stream.
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 193

This assumption greatly simplifies the solution of the system of differential

equations represented by Eq. (1), which becomes linear. Moreover, the tem-
perature profile in the holding tube is assumed linear.

Countercurrent Flow Model. Constant overall heat transfer coefficients

and pure countercurrent flow conditions are assumed for the PHE sections.
The average TPPs and the overall heat transfer coefficients are used for
obtaining the heat load of the sections for these ideal conditions, and thus, the
inlet and outlet temperatures of each section can be obtained from Eq. (7).

Q = Whot ◊ Cphot ,av ◊ (Thot ,in - Thot ,out ) = Wcold ◊ Cpcold ,av ◊ (Tcold ,out - Tcold ,in ) (7)

The heat load of a pure countercurrent flow exchanger, Qcc, is obtained from
Eqs. (8a–d), where ecc is the thermal effectiveness, NTU is the number of
transfer units and C* is the heat capacity ratio (Rohsenow et al. 1998). The
temperature profiles of the egg yolk in the PHE sections and in the holding
tube are assumed linear for calculating the lethality.

Qcc = e cc ◊ min(W ◊ Cpav ) hot ,cold ◊ (Thot ,in - Tcold ,in ) (8a)

- NTU◊ 1- C*
( )
Ï 1-e
Ô - NTU◊(1- C*) if C* < 1
e cc = Ì1 - C *◊ e (8b)
Ô NTU if C* = 1
Ó NTU + 1

Uav ◊ ( NC - 1) ◊ Aplate
NTU = (8c)
min(W ◊ Cpav ) hot ,cold

min(W ◊ Cpav ) hot ,cold

C* = (8d)
max(W ◊ Cpav ) hot ,cold

SIMULATION EXAMPLE

The TPP correlations of the egg yolk presented in Table 1 are used for
the simulation of a pasteurizer with the main objective of evaluating the level
of heat treatment of the process. The PHE with SS-304 flat plates, presented
by Sharifi et al. (1995), is considered for this application, and the process
conditions are shown in Fig. 6. The parameters for the heat transfer correlation
194 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

25 PHE configuration:
Regeneration section
NC = 13 channels
Aplate = 0.0297 m2 Cold side: 16 ¥ 1
L = 0.330 m Hot side: 16 ¥ 1
w w = 0.090 m
400

Heating section
b = 5·10–3 m
NC = 13 channels
eplate = 5·10–4 m Cold side: 7 ¥ 1
L

F=1 Hot side: 3 ¥ 2

5
lplate = 16.3 W/m·C
Cooling section
NC = 13 channels
Cold side: 7 ¥ 1
100 Hot side: 3 ¥ 2
(Dimensions in mm)

2≤ Sanitary pipe, length: 7.6 m

Holding tube
T4
Cold water
0.15 kg/s, 2C Cooling T5 Regeneration Heating

T3

T6

Hot water
T2 0.15 kg/s, 66C
T1

Liquid egg yolk

230 L/h, 5C

FIG. 6. PROCESS CONDITIONS, PLATE DIMENSIONS AND PHE CONFIGURATION FOR

THE SIMULATION EXAMPLE

are a1 = 1.35, a2 = 0.36 and a3 = 0.33 (Sharifi et al. 1995). The PHE was
configured using the optimization procedure developed by Gut and Pinto
(2003b) targeting a pasteurization temperature of 60C and an outlet temper-
ature of 5C.
The fouling factors for utility streams (1.7 ¥ 10-5 m2◊C/W for hot water
and 3.4 ¥ 10-5 m2◊C/W for cold water) were obtained from Marriott (1971),
whereas for the egg yolk, the values presented by Lalande et al. (1979) for
the pasteurization of milk were considered (9 ¥ 10-4 m2·C/W in the heating
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 195

70 2.5

Cooling
Regeneration I

Regeneration II
Heating
Holding tube
T
60
2.0

50

1.5
40
Lt
T (C)

Lt
30
1.0

20
Design lethality:
Lt = 1.0 0.5
10 F60C = 3.5 min

0 0.0
0 50 100 150 200 250
t (s)

FIG. 7. TEMPERATURE AND LETHALITY PROFILES FOR THE EGG

YOLK PASTEURIZATION

section and 3 ¥ 10-4 m2·C/W for the other sections). The TPP correlations of
the water can be found in Gut and Pinto (2003a). The following Z-value of
Salmonella senftenberg 775 W, which is a very high heat-resistant serotype,
was obtained from Mañas et al. (2003) for liquid egg: z = 5.2C. Because the
plates are flat, the geometrical parameters for parallel plates, u = 2 and x = 12,
are assumed for calculating mg and with Eqs. (3) and (4). The obtained values
of g˙ wall are in the range of validity of the rheological parameter correlations
in Table 1. The mean residence time for the holding tube is 3.5 min, and a
temperature drop of 1.0C is assumed.
The mathematical model of the pasteurizer was solved with the software
gPROMS v.2.1.1 (Process Systems Enterprise, London, U.K.) using a second-
order centered finite differences method with 20 intervals in the plate length
and holding tube length for representing the profiles. The discretized model
contains 13,386 variables and algebraic equations, and the simulation time
was 7 s on a 450 MHz/512 Mb-RAM PC. The obtained temperature profile
for the egg yolk stream is presented in Fig. 7, as well as the distribution of
the lethality throughout the pasteurizer.
196 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

The design lethality shown in Fig. 7 is based on the conservative assump-

tion that the thermal treatment occurs only inside the holding tube with a
constant pasteurization temperature of 60C. However, the lethality curve
obtained with the pasteurizer simulation shows that the lethality in the heating
and regeneration sections of the PHE is significant and that the small temper-
ature drop of 1.0C in the holding tube plays an important role. It can be
observed in Eq. (6) that because Lt is an antilog function, it is very sensitive
to temperature changes near the reference temperature, Tref.
Although the process was designed for a cumulative lethality of
F60C = 3.5 min (the area of the shadowed rectangle in Fig. 7) based on Mañas
et al. (2003) and USDA (2004) for liquid whole egg, the cumulative lethality
obtained through process simulation is F60C = 5.53 min (area under the Lt
curve in Fig. 7). This difference represents a thermal overprocessing of 58%.
It is also possible to note that in Fig. 7, the temperature profiles in the
hot and cold sides of the regeneration section are almost linear, confirming
the prediction of Lewis and Heppell (2000) for regeneration sections with high
heat recovery ratio (RR ª (T2 - T1)/(T3 - T1), for this example RR = 78.2%).
The obtained temperature profile in the holding tube also presented an
approximately linear behavior, as previously discussed.
The obtained overall heat transfer coefficient profiles are shown in Fig. 8
for the three sections of the PHE. A large variation on the heat transfer
coefficient is observed because of the variation of the TPPs, especially in the
regeneration section with 680 £ UR £ 990 W/m2·C.

1300 1300

1200 1200

1100 1100 Cooling section

U (W/m2·C)
U (W/m2·C)

1000 1000

900 900

Heating section
800 800

700 700
Regeneration section

600 600
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
η η

FIG. 8. DISTRIBUTION OF THE OVERALL HEAT TRANSFER COEFFICIENT THROUGHOUT

THE THREE PHE SECTIONS
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 197

TABLE 3.
MAIN SIMULATION RESULTS FOR THE DIFFERENT MODELS

Variable Distributed-U model Constant-U model Countercurrent flow model

T2 (C) 49.13 47.98 48.31

T3 (C) 61.41 61.07 61.25
T4 (C) 60.41 60.07 60.25
T5 (C) 16.72 17.55 17.40
T6 (C) 4.49 4.61 4.46
U, regeneration (W/m2·C) see Fig. 8 754 754
U, heating (W/m2·C) see Fig. 8 863 863
U, cooling (W/m2·C) see Fig. 8 1194 1192
F60C (min) 5.41 4.72 5.00

In addition to the distributed-U model, the simplified forms of the pas-

teurizer model were also tested. The main simulation results are presented in
Table 3. The variation observed for the temperatures T2 to T6 is not very
significant, considering that T4 (outlet of the holding tube) and T6 (outlet of
the cooling section) are the most important temperatures obtained from the
simulation. However, the F-value showed to be very sensitive to the temper-
ature profile.
Considering the F-value obtained from the distributed-U model, it is
interesting to note that the deviation on the F-value from the highly simplified
countercurrent flow model is -7.6%, whereas the deviation from the constant-
U model is -12.8%. For this example, the assumption of constant overall heat
transfer coefficient underestimated the heat transfer in the regeneration and
heating sections, and consequently, the F-value was significantly reduced.
Because the additional assumption of pure countercurrent flow overestimates
the heat exchange, the effects compensated each other on the countercurrent
flow model, thus reducing the deviation on the F-value.
In this particular example, the thermal effectiveness of the PHE sections
approaches that of a countercurrent flow exchanger. As a consequence, the
countercurrent flow model presented good results in comparison with the
distributed-U model. However, for PHEs with low thermal effectiveness such
as the ones with single pass on the product side, the deviation on the results
would certainly increase. Nevertheless, the solution of the countercurrent flow
model presents a good estimate of the process conditions before process
simulation by the distributed-U or constant-U models. Because the assumption
of constant overall heat transfer coefficient greatly simplifies the solution of
the mathematical model, and its results are more reliable than those from the
198 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

countercurrent flow model, the constant-U model is recommended for the

simulation of the PHE.

CONCLUSIONS

The empirical correlations for the TPPs of liquid egg yolk such as
density, specific heat, thermal conductivity and power–law rheological param-
eters, at a temperature range compatible with the industrial thermal processing
(0–61C), were presented. These correlations are of utmost importance for the
design of processing plants.
The obtained correlations were used for the simulation of the pasteuriza-
tion process of egg yolk using a distributed-U model, which takes into account
the spatial variation of the overall heat transfer coefficient throughout the PHE.
The obtained temperature profile was used for evaluating the level of heat
treatment of the process. In comparison with the design specifications, a
thermal overprocessing of 58% was detected because of the thermal inactiva-
tion that occurs in the PHE and of the temperature drop inside the holding
tube.
It was verified that the assumption of constant overall heat transfer
coefficient for the sections of the plate heat exchanger and a linear tempera-
ture drop in the holding tube simplifies the mathematical solution of the
model without compromising the main simulation results (inlet and outlet
temperatures of the exchanger sections). However, the F-value showed to be
very sensitive to variations on the temperature profile. A simple pure counter-
current flow model was also tested, and good results were obtained for the
simulation example. Nevertheless, this model is not reliable when the effec-
tiveness of the PHE is considerably lower than that of the countercurrent flow
conditions.
The simulation of the PHE using a reliable mathematical model and
reliable correlations for the TPPs provides a powerful tool to design more
accurately the pasteurization equipment to ensure the effective inactivation of
harmful microorganisms while preserving the food nutrients and sensorial
characteristics. Despite the reliance of regulation agencies on the measure-
ment of the holding tube outlet temperature and the residence time for ensur-
ing thermal processing of liquid foods (FDA 2004), it is clearly shown that
using mathematical modeling, combined with experimentation, may provide
an accurate assessment of the process performance.
Future work will include the experimental validation of the mathematical
model in laboratory scale and even commercial pasteurizers. This will allow
the refinement of the thermal and hydraulic assumptions that will direct future
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 199

work toward the development of more sophisticated models for the design and
operation of pasteurizers.

NOMENCLATURE

Aplate plate effective heat transfer area, Aplate = L·w·F (m2)

a model parameter (dimensionless)
b mean channel gap (m)
C* heat capacity ratio (dimensionless)
Cp specific heat at constant pressure (J/kg·C)
De equivalent diameter of channel, De = 2·b/F (m)
Din internal diameter of holding tube (m)
Ea activation energy for flow (J/mol)
eplate plate thickness (m)
F integrated lethality or F-value (s)
f Fanning friction factor (dimensionless)
h convective heat transfer coefficient (W/m2·C)
K consistency index, power–law model (Pa·sn)
L effective plate length for heat transfer (m)
Lt thermal lethality (dimensionless)
N number of channels per pass
n flow behavior index, power–law model (dimensionless)
NC number of channels on the PHE section
Nu Nusselt number, Nu = h·De/l (dimensionless)
NTU number of transfer units (dimensionless)
P number of passes
Pr Prandtl number, Pr = Cp·mg/l (dimensionless)
Q heat load (W)
R universal gas constant, R = 8.31451 (J/mol·C)
Rport radius of plate port (m)
R2 coefficient of determination
Re Reynolds number, Re = De·v·r/mg (dimensionless)
Rf fouling factor (m2·C/W)
RR heat recovery ratio (%)
si channel i flow direction parameter (si = +1 or -1)
T temperature (C)
Tamb ambient temperature (C)
t time (s)
U overall heat transfer coefficient (W/m2·C)
v average velocity inside the channel (m/s)
W mass flow rate (kg/s)
200 J.A.W. GUT ET AL.

w channel width (m)

x coordinate tangential to channel flow (m)
x¢ coordinate tangential to channel flow, x¢ = x + Rport (m)
y coordinate tangential to holding tube flow (m)
z Z-value, thermal inactivation parameter (C)

Greek Letters
g˙ shear rate (per second)
g˙ wall shear rate at plate wall (per second)
e thermal effectiveness (dimensionless)
h dimensionless coordinate tangential to channel flow, h= x/L (dimen-
sionless)
q residence time (s)
qc channel residence time (s)
l thermal conductivity (W/m·C)
lplate thermal conductivity of the plate (W/m·C)
mg generalized viscosity for power–law model (Pa·s)
x duct geometrical parameter (dimensionless)
r density (kg/m3)
t shear stress (Pa)
u duct geometrical parameter (dimensionless)
F plate area enlargement factor (dimensionless)

Subscripts
av average
cc pure countercurrent conditions
cold cold side of PHE section
hot hot side of PHE section
i PHE channel number
in inlet
out outlet
ref reference
tube holding tube

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to thank FAPESP (The State of São Paulo Research
Foundation) for financial support (grants 00/13635-4, 02/02461-0 and 03/
13051-0).
 CONTINUOUS PASTEURIZATION OF EGG YOLK 201

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