Electroporation is a phenomenon where is an increase in permeability of the cell membrane due to the exposure of the cell to an electric field. Electroporation has been and continues to be the subject of intensive research in many fields, such as biomedicine, food processing and chemical engineering, as well as in environmental sciences. In many studies, a raw potato tuber is used to study electric field distribution established during electroporation, as exposed area darkens due to oxidation of phenolic compounds within 5 hours after electroporation pulses.
The aim of thesis is to study electroporation on potato tuber and determine the threshold of electric field to achieve irreversible electroporation. For this purpose, we performed experiments on different varieties of potato tubers at different delivered pulses amplitudes, measuring the impedance before and after electroporation and measuring the voltage and current of the supplied electric pulses. The analysis of the electroporated part of the potato tuber was based on the captured images of the potato tuber and segmentation after electroporation. We made a numerical model of the potato tuber using finite element method to evaluate and determine threshold of irreversible electroporation and calculated distribution of the electric field during electroporation. The threshold value of the electric field for irreversible electroporation was determined by comparing area of the numerical model and segmented part of the potato tuber.
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