FPE-20306 Food Process Engineering

Course

Credits 6.00

Language of instruction:

English

Assumed knowledge on:

BPE-20806

Continuation courses:

BPE-30303, FPE-30806, FPE-31306

Contents:

This course is an advanced course on food process engineering, focusing on both unit-operations and overall-processes that are relevant to food industry. The four most commonly used unit operations in food industry are evaporation, drying, stabilization and membrane processing. To efficiently process raw materials into a tasty and safe food product often a combination of these unit operations is applied. During this course you will address the theory behind these unit operations, gain practical experience with food processing in making fruit-derived products, and integrate your new knowledge during an intensive case study where you design a processing chain for various tomato products.

Learning outcomes:

- derive balance, reaction rate, and mass transfer equations and solve them for process relevant to the food industry such as, evaporation, drying, stabilization, and membrane filtration;
- understand basic design principles such as batch-wise and continuous, co-current, and counter current operations;
- apply this theoretical knowledge to relevant problems, as illustrated during the practical and the case study;
- make an overall design of a production process by combining several unit operations to efficiently produce a high quality and safe food product. ;
- design and perform lab experiments in combination with use of theory to provide answers to a hypothesis, e.g. investigate the effect of processing on a specific food quality parameters.

Activities:

Lectures and working classes are provided for understanding of the principles of the unit operations. Practical classes will be carried out starting from the second week, students will work in groups of 3 students. A case work will be carried out in groups of 3 students as well. At the end of the course a one-morning excursion to food industry is organized.

Examination:

The final grade is based on a written exam (65%), practical (25%), and case study (10%). To pass the course a minimum grade of 5.5 should be obtained for each part.

Literature:

A reader will be available at the WUR-shop. This reader will contain information about theory, exercises and practical classes. Additional information (handouts, answers to several exercises) will be provided through the blackboard.