Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Measuring – testing – or controlling by inanimate means
Patent
1985-06-17
1987-11-24
Yeung, George
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Measuring, testing, or controlling by inanimate means
99451, 426238, 426522, G01N 3302, A23L 300
Patent
active
047088788
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
STATE OF THE ART
The invention is based on a process for temperature controlling a liquid where this process is of the species stated in the independent claim. In known processes of this type, the liquid temperature controlled is heated either by a heater element projecting directly into the liquid or by a heater element raising the temperature of a container wall and thereby indirectly heating the liquid in the container. Due to this convection heating principle, there arise partial "overheatings", at least until the heat has been distributed uniformly. Quite aside from the fact that such heating results in relatively disadvantageous efficiency and furthermore takes a relative long time, the partial overheating may furthermore lead to destroying particularly susceptible organic reagents at the heat exchange surfaces. Accordingly the temperature control must always take place at low temperature differences, whereby a relatively long time is required to achieve temperature compensation within the liquid. Independently of the part of the liquid container in which the temperature is measured, such temperature measurement is not representative of the average overall liquid temperature. Accordingly, this known method is physically and technically slow, inaccurate and costly in energy, whereby the field of application is becoming increasingly restricted in the presence of the increasing requirements of technology.
In another well known method, the heating takes place by microwaves, however this procedure incurs the essential drawback that the temperature-sensor pickups are affected by the microwave, so that substantial test errors are generated which make it possible to perform temperature control in the sense of regulation.
In a further known method, the heating takes place by means of infrared radiation. Because infrared radiation-intensity decays due to high specific absorption as the depth of penetration into the liquid increases, there occurs local overheating similar to the above described convective heating and with the above-said drawbacks. Again a relatively long time is required for homogeneous heating to occur. Besides the resultant and relatively shallow depth of penetration taking place in this instance, in pure technical terms, infrared temperature control is costly and not universally applicable.
ADVANTAGES OF THE INVENTION
The process of the invention with the characterizing features of the independent claim and also the apparatus of the invention for implementing the invention offer the advantage over the state of the art that the heating takes place homogeneous over the entire cross section subjected to the sound, whereby a partial overheating such as is inevitable in convection heating cannot take place. This is especially significant for biological liquids or such which contain biological substances such as proteins or living cells. Contrary to the case of heating this partial overheating, the homogenizing effect of ultrasonics and thereby the optimal temperature distribution make it possible to prevent denaturing or cell destruction. Illustratively the invention makes it possible in a very simple manner to homogenize and pasteurize milk without danger of overheating.
Another essential advantage is that the ultrasonics is controlled in inertialess manner so that no complex regulating means are required. As a rule a mere proportional control will suffice. Due to the turbulence generated by the acoustic pressure in the liquid, additional agitation is not required and therefore a corresponding agitation means can be dispensed with.
The claims contain a series of embodiments of the invention and are discussed in further detail in the following description of the FIGURES in relation to examples and their advantages.
DRAWING
Four illustrative embodiments of the object of the invention are discussed in closer detail in the drawing and are described comprehensively below:
FIGS. 1 and 2 show the first embodiment of an in-line temperature control.
FIG. 3 shows the second embodiment as a temperat
REFERENCES:
patent: 2585103 (1952-02-01), Fitzgerald
patent: 3743523 (1973-07-01), Bodine
patent: 3846565 (1974-11-01), Rosenberg et al.
patent: 4464401 (1984-08-01), Kissam
Faust Uwe
Hagelauer Ulrich
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