ng h H Keywords: Dielectric properties Radio frequency Electromagnetic field

me soc ith software for solving Maxwell’s electromagnetic and Fourier’s heat transfer equations. Orange, apple, regul to ens cause of fast and volumetric nature of radio frequency (RF) heating, it has been looked upon as a way to overcome the problems asso-ciated with conventional heating methods used for disinfestation of fruits (Hallman and Sharp, 1994; Tang et al., 2000). Nelson (1996) reviewed the research work and concluded that non-uni-form heating of fruits was the major stumbling block in the possi-ble use of RF energy for fruit disinfestation. Recently, research has a material includes dielectric constant (e) which represents stored energy when the material is exposed to an electric field, and the dielectric loss factor (e0 0) which influences energy absorption and attenuation. The RF power absorption in any material is directly proportional to the loss factor, therefore dissimilar materials ex-posed to similar RF field would heat differently (Ryynänen, 1995). The dielectric loss factor in RF range is dominated by ionic conductance (Guan et al., 2004). Addition of salt in water increases the ionic conductivity and the loss factor (Tang, 2005). The differ-ential heating of fruit and water can be overcome by adding table salt to water (Ikediala et al., 2002). The amount of salt to be adde