Cleaning technology in high temperature food processing - from fundamental understanding to sustainable and safe food processing
Food products are heat treated in order to assure the food safety and to increase the shelf life of the product. An unwanted consequence of the thermal treatment is the formation of a deposit, fouling, onto exposed surface of the processing equipment. The challenge is to remove these deposits within minimal time and without using excessive amount of energy, water and chemicals. The key question that this work aims to answer is which mechanisms dominate and limit the efficiency during cleaning of deposits in process equipment for dairy or dairy based products. Focus will be to answer the question in relation to different: process parameters, detergent properties and deposit compositions and structures. The final vision is to establish a classification map that enables tailor made and optimized cleaning routines based on deposit composition, deposit structure, detergents and cleaning mechanisms. This scientific PhD project, granted within the Cross-disciplinary food research Programme by FORMAS and VINNOVA, will be followed by applied projects at Tetra Pak Processing Systems where the results will be verified in full scale for further implementation into new processing solutions.
People: Tommy Nylander, Fredrik Innings (Tetrapak AB), Christian Trägårdh and Marie Paulsson (Food Technology), Niklas Lorén (SIK AB, The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology Structure and Material Design)
Contact person: Tommy Nylander