Electrodynamic Technologies in the Eco-industry of Food and Pharmaceutical Production

The growing interest in the world for research on microwave processing technologies of raw materials is shown. It has been established that information in available sources is only about laboratory-scale equipment, and theoretical information (models, mechanisms, calculation methods) is practically absent. The aim of the work is to conduct systematic studies in the “extractor — dehydrator — plant material” scheme. To achieve the goal, these electrodynamical systems are presented with parametric, mathematical, and experimental models. The most significant result of the work is that the concept of a “hybrid” process is introduced to explain the mechanism of interaction between the electromagnetic field and the raw material. Using the first law of thermodynamics, it is shown that the “hybrid” process performs work to move the solution from the volume of the material to its surface. As a result, sluggish diffusion processes are accompanied by powerful flows, the driving force of which is the pressure difference in the capillary of the material and the environment. The importance of the work is that new effects are established: mechanodiffusional and vapordynamical. Mechanodiffusional allows obtaining polyextracts in one extractor, and vapordynamical allows the dehydration of the solid phase in the form of two parallel streams — vapor and juice. Experiments were conducted with rosehip fruits, soybeans, tomato squeezes, and sunflower meal. It is shown that electrodynamical dehydrators are characterized by stable performance indicators of vapor generation up to concentrations of 85°brix, at low levels of energy consumption. The results of chemical studies of the obtained samples in electrodynamical devices are presented.