Application of new technology of superfine pulverization in food processing

<

Agriculture is the foundation of the national economy. As the binding force of China's natural resources continues to increase, and the demand for major agricultural products such as grain shows a rigid growth rate, the pressure of agricultural production increase, farmers' income increase and agricultural product competitiveness will exist for a long time. The irrational structure of agricultural products, the level of industrialization development and the added value of agricultural products are still low, the ecological and environmental conditions are still severe, and ecological security issues remain outstanding. China's basic national conditions and the severe challenges it faces have determined that scientific and technological progress must be taken as a fundamental measure to solve the "three rural issues", vigorously improve the level of agricultural science and technology, and increase the promotion of advanced and applicable technologies. Thereby improving the comprehensive agricultural production capacity and speeding up the pace of building modern agriculture.

The significance of food ultra-micro processing

People eat food for the sky, and "eat" is a major event that affects the livelihood of the people. With the reduction of land resources, food will become the austerity of this century, and the development of new food resources is a major problem facing humanity.

The international food industry recognizes that ultrafine powder processing technology is one of the top ten food science technologies in the 21st century. The new technology of food ultra-microfabrication is one of the technical measures to effectively improve the utilization rate of agricultural products, and it is an important technical guarantee to solve the problem of increasing agricultural production, increasing farmers' income and deep processing of agricultural and sideline products.

At present, the development of food processing technology in developed countries in the world is changing with each passing day, and the use of high-tech deep processing foods is endless. This brings lucrative profits to the company and strong competitiveness in the international market.

China's food processing industry started late, and the high-tech processing in the food industry and agricultural and sideline products has not been effectively promoted and applied. In order to enhance the innovation of China's agricultural deep processing technology and equipment, expand the space for farmers to increase their income. “The National Medium- and Long-Term (2006-2020) Science and Technology Development Plan”, the implementation decision puts forward the development of agricultural science and technology: extending the agricultural industrial chain, driving the level of agricultural industrialization and comprehensive improvement of agricultural comprehensive benefits. It is necessary to focus on the development of intensive processing of agricultural products, the development of advanced technology and equipment for processing agricultural products, the development of agricultural products processing industries dominated by healthy foods, and the expansion of farmers' income.

China is a large agricultural country, and the plant resources that can be used for food processing are very rich. However, many nutrient-rich plant stems and fruits are difficult to eat directly and are digested by the human body due to limitations of processing techniques, resulting in low edible properties. Increasing the utilization of edible organisms is the purpose of developing intensive processing technology. Ultrafine pulverization is a key technology to effectively solve the problem of broken plant cells, improve the taste of food and increase the digestion and absorption of the human body.

The significance of ultrafine grinding technology in health foods is even more pronounced. As people's living standards improve, people are looking for new health-care nutritious foods. Due to the lack of advanced ultra-fine grinding technology in China, a large number of agricultural and sideline products cannot be processed and utilized intensively, resulting in waste of edible resources. Such as wheat bran, oatmeal, corn husk, rice bran, bean dregs, etc. are mainly used for feed, and are not well developed and utilized. Nutrition experts at home and abroad have long agreed that bran and rice bran are "health foods" with high dietary fiber. Its fiber content is as high as 43.9%, protein is 17.6%, and fat is 8.3%. Consumption of these foods will be beneficial to the body's metabolism, and has a significant effect on preventing constipation, lowering cholesterol, and preventing arteriosclerosis. In foreign countries, fiber health foods developed with bran have become popular in the international market and are popular among consumers.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has issued a dietary fiber guidelines to include wheat bran in key development categories, which has created new business opportunities for accelerating research and development of bran in China. In addition, the annual production of bran in China is about 70 million tons to 80 million tons. If the ultra-fine pulverization technology is used to develop and produce health food, it will be a huge economic wealth. All of this shows that ultrafine grinding technology will have a broader application prospect in the food processing industry.

Superfine grinding technology

Superfine grinding technology is a high-tech.

Ultrafine pulverizing equipment for edible plant stem fruits has become a hot spot in the world. My country is no exception. The superfine pulverization technology has long been included in the national key development projects. At present, some foreign companies are targeting ultra-fine crushing equipment for plant foods and selling them to China at an expensive price. The ultrafine grinding equipment used in plants in China is still relatively backward. Most of them are traditional mechanical impact pulverizers and high-energy, low-volume airflow pulverizers. Product fineness is difficult to achieve ultra-fine requirements. Moreover, there are low production efficiency, high processing cost, and it is difficult for equipment hygiene standards to meet GMP requirements. In the face of many technical problems, it is difficult to promote the application in the food processing industry.

In view of the promotion and application of ultrafine powder in the food processing industry, China's independent innovation research and development has developed the world's first "high turbulent flow grinding". Because of its major innovations in the pulverization mechanism, it has solved the major bottleneck technical problems such as smashing energy-saving, ultra-fine pulverization (sub-micron), and powder-free sieving separation, which have been spurred by experts in various countries so far. This technological achievement, which is used in the food processing industry, will bring new business opportunities to the processing of plant fibers, biological products and functional foods, with an average fineness of 1 um, which gives high-end health foods a smooth taste and Unique taste. At the same time, it brings considerable economic benefits to the comprehensive development and utilization of agricultural and sideline products. Taking bran and rice bran processing as an example, the output per hour can reach more than 50kg, the electricity consumption is 20 kW/hour, and the crushing processing cost is 10% of the jet mill, which is unmatched by all the ultrafine grinding equipment.

Highly turbulent grinding principle and scientific basis

The turbulent flow mill is an innovatively designed "turbulent turbine" that pulsates the material quickly by the high turbulence generated during high-speed operation. High turbulence must occur at a Reynolds number (Re > 1.5 x 105), which has a Reynolds number up to (Re = 6.6 x 105) and does produce highly turbulent motion.

The characteristics of turbulent motion are irregular, that is, irregular random motion composed of unequal vortices. Its most essential feature is "swaying", that is, random pulsation. Its velocity and pressure fields are random. Not only for time but also for space. Another important feature of turbulent motion is diffusivity. In the turbulent flow, due to the intermixing of the vortex bodies, the internal momentum exchange of the fluid is caused. The mass point with large momentum transmits the momentum to the particle with small momentum, and the particle with small momentum affects the mass with large momentum. As a result, the diffusion increases the momentum and mass transfer rate.

When the object to be pulverized is in a highly turbulent flow field, a gas-solid two-phase flow is formed, and the turbulent energy obtained from the mechanical device (turbulent turbine) is gradually transferred from the large vortex to the small vortex by the inertial force. During this complex turbulence process, strong impact, friction, and shear forces are generated, so that the material is effectively pulverized.

Highly turbulent flow grinding process characteristics and superiority

The ultra-fine pulverization technology is called the high-tech of the century by the domestic and foreign scientific and technological circles. Only a few developed countries currently have this production technology. China has been introduced from abroad since the 1990s, and its research and application is in the ascendant. It seems that the equipment introduced is not advanced. "Highly turbulent flow grinding" can pulverize plant fibers to less than 1 um in one time, and the high yield and low energy consumption are mainly determined by major innovation breakthroughs in the pulverization mechanism. Its process characteristics and technical superiority are briefly described as follows:
1. Crushing mechanism: the world's first. Technical level: International leading. It has the technical advantages of low energy consumption, high production efficiency and no separation of powder.
2. Advanced technology, crushing and grading, dispersion and modification, the three processing steps are simplified to one machine synchronous operation. The pulverization temperature is low: the grinding chamber is provided with a cooling closed circuit circulation system, and the powder discharge temperature is not higher than 50 °C.
3. The whole system operates under double negative pressure without any powder leakage. The process is simplified, the complete device is small, and the installation and maintenance is very simple.
4. The technical standards shall be implemented in accordance with the inspection rules for food and drug technical conditions promulgated by the State, and the quality of the equipment shall comply with the GMP technical requirements.
5. Operational sealing, intelligent control: The device adopts automatic sensing temperature and automatic feeding, as well as man-machine screen viewing and programmable automatic adjustment control. At the same time, the equipment can realize automatic interlocking security protection and alarm.

in conclusion

Due to the late start of China's food processing industry, the deep processing of new technologies in the food industry and agricultural and sideline products has not been effectively promoted and applied. Therefore, the new technology of food superfine pulverization has just started in China. However, with the gradual internationalization of China's food industry, food superfine pulverization technology will become one of the science and technology that needs to be developed in the future, and it will bring new business opportunities for the rapid development of China's food industry.