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Smart Agriculture ›› 2021, Vol. 3 ›› Issue (4): 1-13.doi: 10.12133/j.smartag.2021.3.4.202106-SA001

• Topic--Agricultural Products Processing and Testing •     Next Articles

Recent Advances on Application of Radio Frequency Heating in the Research of Post-Harvest Grain Storage and Processing

LI Hongyue(), LI Qingluan, ZHENG Jianjun, LING Bo(), WANG Shaojin()   

  1. College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
  • Received:2021-06-01 Revised:2021-08-02 Online:2021-12-30

Abstract:

The storage and processing of grain are the basis for economic and social stability and development. As a new heating treatment technology based on electromagnetic wave, radio frequency technology has the characteristics of large penetration depth, rapid heating, volumetric heating and no chemical residue. It has been widely used in post-harvest research of grain and has potential industrial application prospects in some fields. To expound the research progress of the application of radio frequency heating technology in grain storage and processing, this review briefly described the basic principle and characteristics of radio frequency heating as well as the current commercial radio frequency heating system including free oscillation type and 50 Ω type. The basic research of radio frequency heating in grain storage and processing was summarized from three aspects: Dielectric properties of grain and pests, heat resistance of stored grain pests and heating uniformity of sample. The dielectric properties refer to the interaction between materials and electromagnetic waves in an electromagnetic field and determines the absorption and conversion of electromagnetic energy. It can predict the heating characteristics of grain and provide basic data for computer simulation to optimize process during radio frequency treatment. The heat resistance data of pests are necessary for the establishment and optimization of dis-infestations technology, so the kinetic date of thermal death of common stored grain pests were reported in this review. As a main hinder in the commercial application of radio frequency treatments, the heating uniformity has significant effect on heat treatment quality and results in potential food safety problems. The major factors causing heating non-uniformity are the non-uniformity of electromagnetic field, runaway heating and the sample shape effect. The improvement methods of heating uniformity were summarized from three aspects in this article including changing the electromagnetic field distribution, sample position, and optimizing the radio frequency working parameters. Based on the above basic research of radio frequency technology and combining with the practical problems in grain storage and processing, the applications of radio frequency heating in the fields of dis-infestations, sterilizing, enzyme inactivation and drying were also summarized. Finally, some suggestions on the application of this technology in grain storage and processing and future research directions were proposed. This review may play a certain guiding role for the application of radio frequency technology in grain storage and processing.

Key words: radio frequency heating, post-harvested grain, disinfestation, pasteurization, enzyme inactivation, drying

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