AIMS AND CONTENT

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course is aimed to provide the  chemical engineer students basic knowledge related to the food industrial plants, analyzing in detail unit operations. The course also provides the elements for the management of food production plants with particular reference to the quality and the safety of the product. The learning skills in terms of applied knowledge and understanding will be acquired through the execution of numerical and laboratory exercises.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course has the aim to give a focus on chemical engineering applications in food sector, by analyzing the unit operations for food preservation and transformation, and showing industrial plant solutions to the peculiar food industry requirements.

The main topics covered during the course will be:

Food properties, classification and degradation reactions.

Food preservation through chemical additives, biological and physical methods.

Food preservation by thermal treatments: pasteurization, sterilization; Bigelow and Arrhenius models for dynamic thermal microbial inactivation; thermal death time method (TDTM), optimization of preservation operations; discontinuous and continuous sterilizers and examples of industrial applications.

Canned technologies: room temperature unit operations; canned vegetables, meat, and fish.

Non-thermal food preservation: hydrostatic high–pressure (HHP), pulsed electric field (PEF), high pressure homogenization.

Principles of food drying and industrial applications.

Concentration by evaporation: evaporator configurations used in food sector and case studies.

Principles of freeze-drying: state diagrams, sublimation rates and industrial processes, discontinuous and continuous mode operations.

Innovative packaging.

Quality and safety in food processing: general aspects of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP); risk analysis in the food chain; hazards identification and application of HACCP procedures; Case studies (industrial bakery, wine industry, dairy industry).

In addition some lectures on industrial processes will be held by senior industrial consultant.

Achievement of knowledge and understanding by practical laboratory experiences.

Guided visits are planned at food industrial plants.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

PATRIZIA PEREGO (President)

ALESSANDRO ALBERTO CASAZZA

BRUNO FABIANO