An Introduction of Biomimetic System and Heat Pump Technology in Food Drying Industry

Drying of food products is a relatively complex, nonlinear, and dynamic process due to simultaneous heat and mass transfer, rapid moisture evaporation, and biological and chemical reactions. Therefore, the monitoring of food quality during the drying process using bio-inspired technologies can play a vital role. The demand for high-quality dried food products and the rapid growth of energy in food processing are attracting new and renewable sources of energy. Energy efficiency, improved food product quality, and less environmental impact are always the main priorities of any drying system development. In-depth knowledge of biomimetic systems and drying kinetics would be helpful to design new dryers and technologies. Due to the excellent features (controllable drying temperature, drying time, drying air velocity, and relative humidity), heat pump drying systems have been used widely to ensure food and agricultural product quality. This chapter helps to understand the relationship between bio-inspired technologies and the role of heat pump technology in the food drying industry in terms of cost-effectiveness, energy saving, and better food product quality.

A Non-Invasive Soil Moisture Sensing System Electronic Architecture: A Real Environment Assessment

This paper will show the electronic architecture of a portable and non-invasive soil moisture system based on an open rectangular waveguide. The spectral information, measured in the range of 1.5–2.7 GHz, is elaborated on by an embedded predictive model, based on a partial least squares (PLS) regression tool, for the estimation of the soil moisture (%) in a real environment. The proposed system is composed of a waveguide, containing Tx and Rx antennas, and an electronic circuit driven by a microcontroller (MCU). It will be shown how the system provides a useful and fast estimation of moisture on a silty clay loam soil characterized by a moisture range of about 9% to 32% and a soil temperature ranging from about 8 °C and 18 °C. Using the PLS approach, the moisture content can be predicted with an R2 value of 0.892, a root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.0%, and a residual prediction deviation (RPD) of 4.3. The results prove that it is possible to make accurate and rapid moisture assessments without the use of invasive electrodes, as currently employed by state-of-the-art approaches.

Fluorine plasma treatment on carbon-based perovskite solar cells for rapid moisture protection layer formation and performance enhancement

We first manufactured an F plasma-treated carbon electrode-based high performance perovskite solar cell with strong moisture resistance.

Hygrothermal Ageing Modeling and Numerical Testing of Unidirectional Polymeric Composites

Moisture severely affects aerospace structures and offshore platforms during their service life span. It deteriorates the mechanical performance of polymeric composites through long term and cyclic hygrothermal ageing. This reduction in mechanical performance must be considered during product design to ensure long-term structure endurance. In order to decide the long-term moisture effects on composite components, they are exposed to a rapid moisture conditioning. Presently the available qualified methodologies allowing only simple geometry and an assumption that diffusivity rates are independent of the flow path or direction. Therefore a more advanced finite element method is required. In this research work the finite-element analysis was performed to study the moisture diffusion in unidirectional composites. The final goal for this study was to determine the exposure time for rapid moisture conditioning that produces the most accurate moisture distribution in composite laminates.

A comparison of two methods for estimating conifer live foliar moisture content

Foliar moisture content is an important factor regulating how wildland fires ignite in and spread through live fuels but moisture content determination methods are rarely standardised between studies. One such difference lies between the uses of rapid moisture analysers or drying ovens. Both of these methods are commonly used in live fuel research but they have never been systematically compared to ensure that they yield similar results. Here we compare the foliar moisture content of Pinus contorta (lodgepole pine) at multiple sites for an entire growing season determined using both oven-drying and rapid moisture analyser methods. We found that moisture contents derived from the rapid moisture analysers were nearly identical to oven-dried moisture contents (R2 = 0.99, n = 68) even though the rapid moisture analysers dried samples at 145°C v. oven-drying at 95°C. Mean absolute error between oven-drying and the rapid moisture analysers was low at 2.6% and bias was 0.62%. Mean absolute error was less than the within-sample variation of an individual moisture determination method and error was consistent across the range of moisture contents measured. These results suggest that live fuel moisture values derived from either of these two methods are interchangeable and it also suggests that drying temperatures used in live fuel moisture content determination may be less important than reported by other studies.