(Press-News.org) Researchers at the University of Sheffield have found a more efficient way to dry products for food manufacture, using tiny, hot bubbles.
Instead of boiling a product to evaporate water - the most common technique used by industry - the Sheffield team injected hot microbubbles through the liquid, causing the water to evaporate without boiling.
Professor Will Zimmerman, who led the study, explains: "We've applied this principle, called 'cold boiling' to separate water from methanol. Although conventional bubbles have been used in evaporation processes before, they still transfer a lot of their heat to the mixture. This wastes a lot of energy, and can also 'cook' the mixture, which in most cases makes it unusable.
"The process we have developed involves applying the right concentration of hot microbubbles to a thin layer of liquid. This causes the water to vaporise with very little heating of the mixture."
The ability of microbubbles to draw heat out of a liquid can be exploited in many industrial processes, from food processing to biofuel production.
Professor Zimmerman's team is currently working on a pilot project with South Yorkshire-based company, Carbon Sequestration Ltd., using the technique to remove excess water from whey, commonly used as an animal food. If whey is overheated when its water content is removed, it loses much of its nutritional value.
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For more information
Beck Lockwood, Campus PR, tel 0121 4511321, mob 0778 3802318, email beck@campuspr.co.uk
Shemina Davis, University of Sheffield press office, tel 0114 222 5339, email: shemina.davis@sheffield.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
1. "Evaporation dynamics of microbubbles", by William B. Zimmerman, Mahmood K Al-Mashhadani and H.C. Hemaka Bandulasena is published in Chemical Engineering Science.
2. The new physical principle underpins the 4CU Programme Grant (EPSRC £5.7m) led by Chemical and Biological Engineering for novel carbon capture and utilization, with the potential of dramatically reducing the cost of carbon capture and regeneration. The patent on microbubble distillation has already been filed.
3. The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sheffield - the 2011 Times Higher Education's University of the Year - is one of the largest in the UK. Its seven departments include over 4,000 students and 900 staff and have research-related income worth more than £50M per annum from government, industry and charity sources. The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) confirmed that two thirds of the research carried out was either Internationally Excellent or Internationally Leading.
The Faculty of Engineering has a long tradition of working with industry including Rolls-Royce, Network Rail and Siemens. Its industrial successes are exemplified by the award-winning Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and the new £25 million Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (NAMRC).
The Faculty of Engineering is set to ensure students continue to benefit from world-class labs and teaching space through the provision of the University's new Engineering Graduate School. This brand new building, which will become the centre of the faculty´s postgraduate research and postgraduate teaching activities, will be sited on the corner of Broad Lane and Newcastle Street. It will form the first stage in a 15 year plan to improve and extend the existing estate in a bid to provide students with the best possible facilities while improving their student experience.
To find out more about the Faculty of Engineering, visit: http://www.shef.ac.uk/faculty/engineering/
Microbubbles point the way to a revolution in food processing
2013-06-04
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