The forgotten method? : pulsed electric field thresholds from the perspective of texture analysis

Genovese, Jessica (author), Rocculi, Pietro (author), Miklavčič, Damijan (author), Mahnič-Kalamiza, Samo (author)

Pulsed electric field (PEF) technology has found applications in various industrial food sectors, including the potato industry, winemaking, biorefinery, and juice extraction, among others. The practical implementation of PEF technology in the food industry is however still hindered by several challenges. The detection and quantification of PEF effects are complex due to the variable characteristics and properties of raw materials, including mcellular composition, structural organization, textural properties, and tissue porosity. Moreover, the PEF treatment parameters (e.g., pulse amplitude, duration, shape, rate), and process parameters (e.g., temperature, pH, medium conductivity) further complicate the optimization of PEF protocols, requiring a case-by-case approach. Knowledge of treated material properties and their functional dependence on PEF is a crucial prerequisite to informed, intelligent design of treatment protocols. We present an experimental study designed to gain insights into the mechanism behind the changes in textural properties induced by PEF in both plant and animal tissues. These changes in texture are then compared with findings from our previous study on electrical impedance, to highlight how different methods of detection of PEF-induced changes in tissue can yield vastly different results based on the method of analysis used depending on tissue properties. Furthermore, texture analysis unveiled the less-explored effects of PEF treatment on electroosmosis phenomena in both plant and animal tissues. We provide a comparative analysis between plant and animal tissues to elucidate the differences in deformation resulting from PEF treatment. We thus demonstrate how important it is, be it in the development phase or for process control during industrial operation, to choose an appropriate method of characterising PEF-induced changes in tissue to avoid under- or overtreatment.

• Language: English
• Keywords: turgor pressure, mass transport, electroporated tissue, texture analysis, pulsed electric fields
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FE - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: 9 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 176, art. 113869
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-171182
• UDC: 602.621
• ISSN on article: 1873-7145
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodres.2023.113869
• COBISS.SI-ID: 178507779
• Publication date in RUL: 18.08.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Food research international
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• ISSN: 1873-7145
• COBISS.SI-ID: 21407510

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: turgorski tlak, transport snovi, elektroporirano tkivo, analiza teksture, pulzna električna polja