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Processes
Special Issues
Emerging Thermal and Non-Thermal Technologies for Food Preservation and Sustainable...
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Emerging Thermal and Non-Thermal Technologies for Food Preservation and Sustainable Food Processing

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Process Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025 | Viewed by 1077

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Tesfaye Bedane

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin (UCD), D02 YN77 Dublin, Ireland
Interests: sustainable food processing; modeling and simulation of food processes; electro-heating technologies; waste valorization; tempering and thawing
Prof. Dr. Long Chen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: novel food processing; numerical modeling of food processes; radio frequency heating (pasteurization and drying); low-moisture food safety
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The food industry is a dynamically growing sector that is driven by the continuously growing consumer demand for healthy, nutritious, safe and high-quality products. Preserving and maintaining the quality of foods using conventional or traditional methods presents substantial energy and environmental impacts. On one side, the highly growing demand for minimally processed foods and the increased demand for ready-to-eat foods due to lifestyle changes has increased the demand for innovative and sustainable processing while also minimizing energy consumption and environmental impacts. Therefore, exploring innovative thermal and/or non-thermal preservation and processing technologies is of great importance for the sustainable processing of healthy foods.

This Special Issue aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the latest technologies and trends regarding food preservation using thermal technologies, such as moderate electric fields/ohmic heating, radio frequency heating, microwave heating, and non-thermal preservation methods such as pulsed electric fields, pulsed light, irradiation, high pressure processing, cold plasma, etc.

Topics covered in this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Innovative food preservation and processing technologies;
  • Hardle approaches to preservation methods;
  • Microbial inactivation during food processing;
  • Sustainable processing of foods to minimize energy consumption;
  • Emerging thermal and non-thermal technologies and equipment for food processing;
  • Impacts of thermal or non-thermal food processing quality and safety of foods;
  • The use of science-based digital tools in improving food preservation of foods;
  • Synergistic effects of combined preservation methods.

Dr. Tesfaye Bedane
Prof. Dr. Long Chen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • food processing
  • preservation
  • sustainable processing
  • food safety
  • food quality
  • minimal processing
  • thermal processing
  • non-thermal processing

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 4449 KiB  
Article
Modeling the Effects of Temperature and Total Soluble Solids on Electrical Conductivity of Passion Fruit Juice During Ohmic Heating
by Rittichai Assawarachan and Samerkhwan Tantikul
Processes 2025, 13(5), 1324; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13051324 - 26 Apr 2025
Viewed by 151
Abstract
This study models the electrical conductivity (EC) of passion fruit juice during ohmic heating under voltage gradients of 10, 20, and 30 V/cm, considering temperature (25–85 °C) and total soluble solids (TSS: 11.5, 15.5, and 19.5 °Brix). EC was measured using a laboratory-scale [...] Read more.
This study models the electrical conductivity (EC) of passion fruit juice during ohmic heating under voltage gradients of 10, 20, and 30 V/cm, considering temperature (25–85 °C) and total soluble solids (TSS: 11.5, 15.5, and 19.5 °Brix). EC was measured using a laboratory-scale ohmic heating system, and three empirical models were developed using non-linear regression with the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm. The second-order polynomial model showed the highest accuracy (R2 = 0.9974; RMSE = 0.0191; χ2 = 0.0112). EC increased with temperature, which enhanced ion mobility and decreased viscosity, while its relationship with TSS was non-linear: EC rose at low to moderate TSS but declined at higher concentrations, attributed to reduced free water and ion solute interactions. The validated model offers a reliable tool for real-time process control in industrial scale pasteurization and evaporation of tropical fruit juices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Thermal and Non-Thermal Technologies for Food Preservation and Sustainable Food Processing)
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15 pages, 3445 KiB  
Article
Study on the Effects of Different Thawing Methods on the Thawing Efficiency of Pork
by Anyuan Xue, Shanshan Chen and Yuyao Sun
Processes 2025, 13(4), 1067; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13041067 - 2 Apr 2025
Viewed by 225
Abstract
The production and consumption of pork are substantial worldwide, with frozen pork being the primary form for storage and transportation. To evaluate the efficiency and quality of different thawing methods, we conducted experiments using 2 kg pork samples, comparing natural air thawing (NAT), [...] Read more.
The production and consumption of pork are substantial worldwide, with frozen pork being the primary form for storage and transportation. To evaluate the efficiency and quality of different thawing methods, we conducted experiments using 2 kg pork samples, comparing natural air thawing (NAT), vacuum steam thawing (VST), and a novel vacuum sublimation–rehydration thawing (VSRT). This study focused on evaluating the thawing efficiency, particularly energy consumption and thawing effectiveness, by analyzing key parameters such as the thawing time, thawing loss rate, and quality attributes. The results showed that VSRT achieved the shortest thawing time (54.60 min), with reductions of 55.37% and 34.61% compared to NAT and VST, respectively. VSRT also significantly reduced the thawing loss rate (by 85.66% and 79.27%) and total color difference (by 87.04% and 82.76%) compared to NAT and VST. The color and texture parameters of VSRT-thawed pork were closer to those of fresh meat (p > 0.05), while its specific energy consumption was 40.67% lower than that of VST. These findings highlight the potential of VSRT to preserve pork quality more effectively while offering faster thawing rates and lower energy consumption, making it a promising candidate for industrial-scale applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Thermal and Non-Thermal Technologies for Food Preservation and Sustainable Food Processing)
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