ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES

OF FOOD
Electrical Properties:
• Important when processing foods involving electric fields,
electric current conduction, or heating through electromagnetic
waves.

• Useful in the detection of processing conditions or the quality of

foods.
Electrical Properties:
 Conductance

 Conductivity

 Resistance

 Capacitance

 Dielectric properties

 Reaction to electromagnetic radiation

Conductance
Conductance:
• The conductance of a food says how good a conductor it is.
• Inverse of electrical resistance of a food
• SI Unit: Siemens
• The higher the conductance, the better the component food
is at conducting.
Conductivity
Electrical Conductivity:
• Measure of its ability to conduct electricity
• A measure of how well electric current flows through a food
of unit cross-sectional area a, unit length l, and resistance r.
• SI unit: siemens per meter (S/m)
• Specific conductance
• Inverse value of electrical resistivity (measure of resistance
to electric flow)
• Determined by determining resistance
• Used to determine the amount of Total Dissolved
Solids(TDS) if the composition of the solution and its
conductivity behavior are known
• Ability of seeds to hold a surface charge
EC of Foods:
Depends on:
– Temperature
– Applied voltage gradient
– Frequency
– Concentration of the electrolytes
– Size and shape
– Water content
Measurement:
• Measured by passing a known current at constant voltage
through a known volume of the material and by
determining resistance.
• The internal structure of agricultural products change
substantially during their deformation (Dejmek and
Miywaki 2002).
• The electrical conductivity of foods has been found to
increase linearly with temperature, and water/ ionic
content.
Measurement devices:
• Conductivity meter
• Basic measurements - bridge networks (such as
Wheatstone Bridge circuit) / galvanometer.
• Thermocouples
• Voltage and current transducers to measure
voltage across and current through the samples
Conductance Vs. Conductivity
Conductance Conductivity
• The degree to which an • The degree to which a
object conducts electricity specified material
conducts electricity
• For an object made of a • Material property
material
• Dependent of its • Independent since it is an
amount/mass or physical inherent property of a
shape material
• Extrinsic property • Intrinsic property
• eg: Copper wire • eg: Copper
Resistance
Electrical Resistance:
• Ability to resist the current flow through food.
• Inverse of Conductance.
• Electrical resistance heating allows particles and liquids to
heat at the same rate
• Permits the rapid heating of mixtures with high solids
fractions.
Measurement:
• Measures the electrical resistance of a measured
amount of grain sample at a given compaction and
temperature
• Electrical resistance varies with moisture,
temperature and degree of compaction
• This method takes only 30 seconds for moisture
measurement
• Examples are Universal moisture meter (USA) and
Kett moisture meter (Japan)
Capacitance:
Capacitance:
• It is the ability to store energy.
• In solids, liquid, and gases the permittivity depends on
dielectric constant ε′, which is related to capacitance of a
substance and its ability to store electrical energy.
Measurement:
• 200 g of grain sample is placed between the condenser
plates and the capacitance is measured.

• Capacitance varies with moisture, temperature and

degree of compaction

• This method takes one minute for moisture

measurement

• Motomco moisture meter (USA) and Burrows

moisture meter are capacitance type moisture meters
Dielectric properties
Dielectric properties:

• Significant to understand the heating profiles of foods in a

microwave oven and to develop equipment and microwaveable foods.
Factors affecting dielectric properties:
• Moisture content
• Temperature
• Structure & Composition of the material
• Frequency of the applied alternating electric field
• Bulk density
• Temperature
• Ionic nature
• Concentration/density
Moisture content:
• Interaction of food components with water affect dielectric
properties
• Binding forces between protein and carbohydrate and water
strong, smaller value of ε’ and ε’’
• Adjustment of moisture content is done in formulating
microwaveable foods
Composition of the material:

• Carbohydrate, fat, moisture, protein and salt contents are major food
components.

• The presence of free water and bound water, electrolytes, non-

electrolytes and hydrogen bonding in the food affects the dielectric
properties.

• The physical changes that take place during the processing such as loss of
moisture and protein denaturation also affects the dielectric properties
of the material.
Frequency of Oven:
• The waves of microwave energy are cycling above and below a horizontal
baseline. The half cycle below the baseline possesses negative properties,
and the half cycle above the line is correspondingly positive. Basically, the
effect of this wave, as it alternates between positive and negative, would
be like a magnet flipping back and forth.
Electrical permittivity:
• A dielectric property which is used to explain interactions of
foods with electric fields.
• Determines the interaction of electromagnetic waves with matter
and defines the charge density under an electric field.
• In solids, liquid, and gases the permittivity depends on two
values:
• Dielectric constant, ε’
• Dielectric loss factor, ε’’
• Dielectric constant, ε’

- Ability of a material to store microwave energy

• Dielectric loss factor, ε’’

- Ability of a material to dissipate microwave energy into heat

- Parameter that measures microwave absorptivity

• Dielectric constant and loss factor – important role in determining

interaction of microwaves with food
Measurement of dielectric properties:
• Cavity perturbation
• Transmission line
• Open-ended coaxial probe
• Free space transmission
• Resonators and transmission line
• Colloid dielectric probe
• Free space transmission technique
• Time domain spectroscopy/ reflectometry
• The lumped circuit techniques
Cavity Perturbation Technique:
• Frequently used for measuring dielectric properties of
homogeneous food materials
• Merits:
– simplicity
– easy data reduction
– accuracy
– high temperature capability
– well suited to low dielectric loss materials
– sensitive to low loss tangents
• Principle:
Measures based on the shift in resonant
frequency and the change in absorption
characteristics of a tuned resonant cavity,
due to insertion of a sample of target
material.
• The resonant cavities are designed in the
standard TM (transverse magnetic) or TE
(transverse electric) mode of propagation
of the EMF.
• Sample is placed through the centre of a
waveguide (rectangular or circular) that
has been made into a cavity.
• For ease of measurement, the vector
network analyzer (VNA) can be used to
Source: Schematic representation of a resonant cavity method
automatically display changes in R = reflected power, T = transmitted power (adapted from
frequency and width. Venkatesh and Raghavan 2005)
Advances in measurement of dielectric properties:
• Modern microwave network analyzers - obtain dielectric
properties over frequency ranges with more efficiency.
• Impedance analyzers and network analyzers - automatic
measurement of dielectric properties over wide frequency
ranges
• Special calibration methods - to eliminate errors caused by
unknown reflections in the coaxial-line systems.
Applications of dielectric properties:
• Selection of proper packaging materials
• Selection of cooking utensils
• Design of microwave and radio frequency heating
equipment
Reaction to electromagnetic radiation
Reaction to electromagnetic radiation
• Electromagnetic heating processes related to dielectric
properties of a material.
• This is because they describe how the material interacts
with electromagnetic radiation.
• Studies of heating uniformity and temperature elevation
rate involve dielectric properties.
SIGNIFICANCE OF ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES:
Electrical properties are important in processing foods
with:
• Ohmic heating
• Induction heating
• Radio frequency
• Microwave heating
• Pulsed Electric Field
• Oscillating Magnetic Field
• Crystallization processes
REFERENCES:
• Barbosa-Cánovas G.V., Juliano P. and Peleg M. Engineering
Properties of Foods - Washington State University, USA
• L.R. Wilhelm, D.A. Suter, & G.H. Brusewitz (2005). Food &
Process Engineering Technology textbook ISBN: 1-892769-43-
3.
• Kent M, Electrical and dielectric properties of food materials