Pulsed Electric Field Processing Technology

The use of an external electrical field for a few microseconds induces local structural changes
and a rapid breakdown of the cell membrane. Based on this phenomenon, called
electroporation, many applications of high intensity pulsed electric fields (PEF) have been
studied in the last decades. In the area of plant and microbial genetics pulsed electric fields
are applied to cause an electroporation of cell membranes to infuse foreign material such as
DNA into the cell. This process of reversible pore formation has to be controlled to maintain
viability of the organisms during the application of the PEF. Due to the reversible
permeabilization, the cells repair their membranes through resealing the electropores
immediately after the PEF treatment. This principle can also be utilized to induce stress
reactions and secondary metabolite biosynthesis, which can be desirable food constituents. At
higher treatment intensity PEF can be utilized for the inactivation of microorganisms by an
irreversible breakdown of the cell membrane. In food technology this irreversible pore
formation by PEF can be applied as a mild preservation technique for liquid food as well as a
substitute for conventional cell disintegration methods, such as grinding or enzymatic
treatment, as a pre-treatment step for mass transfer improvement prior to dehydration,
extraction or pressing.

Historical background

The bactericidal effect of an electric current had already been tested at the end of the
nineteenth century (Prochownick and Spaeth, 1890; Krüger, 1893; Thiele and Wolf, 1899),
but the lethal effects found by applying direct or low-frequency alternating current resulted
from thermal or electrochemical effects. In the 1920s a process called ‘Electropure’ was
introduced in Europe and the USA (Beattie and Lewis, 1925; Fetterman, 1928; Moses, 1938).
Being one of the first attempts to use electricity for milk pasteurization, it was performed by
the application of a (not pulsed) 220 V alternating current within a carbon electrode treatment
chamber. About 50 plants were in operation until the 1950s, but due to rising energy costs
and competition with mild novel thermal preservation technologies such as UHT, these
(ohmic heating) plants have been replaced (Reitler, 1990). Apart from thermal effects based
on the mechanism of ohmic heating, lethal effects of electrochemical reactions such as the
hydrolysis of chlorine were found when subjecting food to discharges with a voltage of 3–
4kV (Pareilleux and Sicard, 1970).Pulsed discharges of high voltage electricity across two
electrodes for microbial inactivation were first investigated in the 1950s (Allen and Soike,
1966; Edebo and Selin,1968), resulting in a process called electro hydraulic treatment. The
electrodes were submerged in the liquid medium within a pressure vessel, electric arcs were
generated byhigh voltage pulses forming transient pressure shock waves up to 250MPa and
ultraviolet light pulses. Electrochemical reactions, shock waves and ultraviolet light forming
free, highly reactive radicals were responsible for the bactericidal effect, but disintegration of
food particles and electrodes, leading to food contamination inhibited an industrial
application of this process except for wastewater (Jeyamkondan et al., 1999).
Today about 20 research groups are working in this area worldwide, but still there is no
commercial, industrial system available. For liquid food preservation four pilot scale systems
are available at present, at Ohio State University (USA), at Stork Food and Diary Systems
(The Netherlands), at SIK (Sweden) and at the Berlin University of Technology (Germany).
For cell disintegration pilot systems are available at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (Germany)
and Berlin University of Technology (Germany).

PEF treatment systems

The main components required for a pulsed electric field application are:
 An impulse generation system and

 A treatment chamber

Generation of pulsed electric fields

The impulse generation system transforms the electric power from a low utility level voltage to pulsed
high intensity electric fields. A simplified circuit for generation of exponential decay pulses is shown in
Figure, consisting of a charging and a discharging unit. In the first one, an energy storage device is charged
across a charging resistor by a DC high voltage power supply. The generation of pulsed electric fields
requires slow charging and a fast discharging of the energy, as the pulse width is short in comparison to the
time between pulses. The charging voltage, U0, required to generate pulses of sufficient electric field
strength is highly dependent on the electrode distance. For two parallel plate electrodes the electric field
strength E is given by:

E=U/D

where U is the voltage (kV) and d (m) the gap between the electrodes. Voltages in the range of 10–60 kV
have been used for food treatment. Increasing the gap d to obtain high flow rate capacity imposes
increasing the charging voltage and therefore stress on the switching system. The electric power is most
commonly stored in a bank of capacitors connected in series or parallel and discharged into the treatment
chamber across a high voltage switch and protective resistors within microseconds.
Treatment chamber design

The treatment chamber, wherein the food is exposed to the electric field pulses, consists of at least two
electrodes, one on high voltage and the other on ground potential, separated by insulating material in
different geometric configurations. Parallel plates, coaxial or co-linear cylinders have commonly been
used. A large number of studies have been performed with parallel plate systems in batch wise and later in
continuous flow operation. Batch chambers provide many advantages for laboratory use; small volumes of
treatment media are required and the treatment temperature is easy to maintain by cooling the electrodes
and by slow repetition rates. Above all, the pulse number for each volume element is well known. Apart
from niche products for an industrial application, continuous chambers will be necessary to achieve high
volume capacity and easy integration into already existing food processing lines.

Mechanisms of microbial inactivation

A microbial cell subjected to a PEF of sufficient strength undergoes membrane permeabilization. The
magnitude of the trans membrane potential (TMP) determines whether the formation of pores is reversible
(electrical) or irreversible (mechanical).A correlation between PEF inhibition and membrane
permeabilization of L. Plantarum LA 10-11 cells was demonstrated by Wouters et al. (2001b), whereas no
relationship was observed between membrane permeabilization and heat inactivation. Results indicated
that the ability of PEF treatment to cause membrane permeabilization was the most important factor in
determining inactivation.

The exact mode of action for pore formation is unclear. Some theories suggest that a large population of
pores is always present, expanding rapidly in response to large potentials, while others hypothesize that
pores are rapidly created by large potentials, followed immediately by rapid pore expansion (Ho and
Mittal, 1996). PEF treatments are responsible for cell death by two key steps. First, the applied field
induces electropore formation in the cell membrane. Secondly, if the pore formation is stable enough,
interaction with the surroundings causes leakage of cellular contents, organelle destruction or lysis,
resulting in death. Tests on artificial lipid bilayers show that natural analogues present in the cell
membranes of organisms are the most likely target for PEFs (Chernomirdik and Chizmadzhev, 1989).