Design and Fabrication of Ohmic Heating Equipment

Ohmic heating is an advanced, alternative and innovative thermal processing method in food processing, particularly in aseptic processing. Ohmic heating is also called electrical resistance heating, joule heating or electro resistive heating. With proper formulation, electrical energy can be converted to heat uniformly in food matrices; thereby runaway heating can be avoided even for non-homogenous food products. In Ohmic heating the food materials, serves as an electrical resistor and is heated by passing electricity through it. Electrical energy is dissipated into heat, which results in rapid and uniform heating. The paper deals with the design and fabrication of ohmic heating equipment. The ohmic heating equipment consists of a tank, sets of electrodes, stand, DC power supply and temperature controller. The tank is made of glass. The electrodes are made with stainless steel (SS 316). The stand and temperature controller is made of mild steel and the DC power supply has a maximum voltage rating of 30 V and current rating of 10 A Key words: ohmic heating, electrical energy,electrodes. 1