Annual Pulsed Electric Fields technology day to be held in Germany

In a wide-ranging supporting program full of technical presentations, machine demos and discussion panels, researchers and partners from Elea present the benefits of Pulsed Electric Field technology for industrial food processing.

PEF (Pulsed Electric Fields) technology is using high voltage pulses to open the structure of various agricultural products including vegetables. This changes the cell membrane and temporarily “opens” the pores.

There are various areas of application for PEF in the food sector. On the one hand, the opening of pores has the effect that the respective ingredients can be extracted more easily, for example when extracting juice, oil, colour or other valuable compounds. On the other hand, undesirable substances can also escape more easily. A potato, for example, loses excess water through cell disruption, which softens the potato structure and positively influences further processing in all subsequent production steps. The principle of PEF is based on a physical phenomenon called electroporation and does not involve any chemical or thermal treatment.

In recent years, the PEF process has proved particularly successful in the potato sector, i.e. in the processing of potato chips and fries. However, the novel technology is also becoming increasingly established in other application areas, such as fruit, vegetables, and biotechnology.

The PEF Advantage Day will focus on the application of Pulsed Electric Fields in industrial vegetable processing and in the field of biotechnology. The first event day will highlight the benefits of treating different kinds of vegetables with PEF.

PEF impacts on several subsequent processing steps as well, such as drying, freezing or even frying. The mass transport, which is involved in each of those, is facilitated due to on open structure allowing an optimization of processing conditions in terms of temperature and time. This is not only beneficial looking at energy requirements and production costs but also for product quality