Emerging Technologies for Food Processing, 2nd Edition

28.5. Modeling High-Pressure Freezing Processes

Modeling food freezing processes, even at atmospheric pressure, is a difficult task (Delgado and Sun, 2001; Pham, 2006). Food products usually have complex shape, size and composition. Initial freezing temperatures are variable and may be lower than 0 °C, depending on the sample composition. Water is not totally available for freezing and it solidifies within a range of freezing temperatures rather than at a freezing point, due to the freeze concentration of solutes (Franke, 2000). Moreover, in selecting thermal properties, identification of values for foods is difficult because these change as the freezing process progresses, as does the heat transfer coefficient, which has a significant influence ...