Date of Award

6-2021

Degree Name

MS in Electrical Engineering

Department/Program

Electrical Engineering

College

College of Engineering

Advisor

Dean Arakaki

Advisor Department

Electrical Engineering

Advisor College

College of Engineering

Abstract

Bacterial presence in low-moisture foods such as flour, cereals, baby formula, and spices, have become a concern due to sanitizing challenges. The food industry currently focuses on wet food sanitation as opposed to low-moisture foods because of bacteria’s inability to reproduce in low water activity media. Traditionally, food processing RF heating pasteurizes in mass quantities while an equivalent consumer device does not exist the market today. A consumer product would help eliminate food waste by providing an easy way to sanitize food and extend shelf life. The Portable Food Pasteurization (PFP) project is an interdisciplinary project involving the Electrical Engineering, Biology, and Food Science departments to develop an RF heating consumer device to pasteurize low-moisture foods. A prototype device was designed but construction was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are continuing this project by replacing the previously designed MOSFET inverter with a class C amplifier due to parts availability and performance. The food chamber is redesigned by Jonathan Souza to incorporate parallel plate electrodes for more uniform heating without risk of burning. Tim Erwin improved the flyback converter with a snubber and discharge circuit. Tradeoff analysis is performed on various system components to define a configuration for future development.

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