Water phase transition under pressure and its application in high pressure thawing of agar gel and fish

• Published in: Journal of Food Engineering
• Main Authors: Zhu, S.M., Su, G.M., He, J.S., Ramaswamy, H.S., Le-Bail, Alain, Yu, Y.
• Other Authors: Zhejiang University Hangzhou, China, McGill University = Université McGill Montréal, Canada, Matrices Aliments Procédés Propriétés Structure - Sensoriel (GEPEA-MAPS2), Laboratoire de génie des procédés - environnement - agroalimentaire (GEPEA), Institut Universitaire de Technologie - Nantes (IUT Nantes), Université de Nantes (UN)-Université de Nantes (UN)-Université de Nantes - UFR des Sciences et des Techniques (UN UFR ST), Université de Nantes (UN)-Université de Nantes (UN)-Institut Universitaire de Technologie Saint-Nazaire (IUT Saint-Nazaire), Université de Nantes (UN)-Ecole Polytechnique de l'Université de Nantes (EPUN), Université de Nantes (UN)-École nationale vétérinaire, agroalimentaire et de l'alimentation Nantes-Atlantique (ONIRIS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Bretagne Loire (UBL)-IMT Atlantique (IMT Atlantique), Institut Mines-Télécom Paris (IMT)-Institut Mines-Télécom Paris (IMT)-Institut Universitaire de Technologie - La Roche-sur-Yon (IUT La Roche-sur-Yon), Université de Nantes (UN)-Institut Universitaire de Technologie - Nantes (IUT Nantes), Université de Nantes (UN), École nationale vétérinaire, agroalimentaire et de l'alimentation Nantes-Atlantique (ONIRIS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: High pressure; Phase transition; Thawing; Calorimeter; Fish; [SPI]Engineering Sciences [physics]; [SDV.IDA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Food engineering; Atlantic salmon; Salmo salar
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04652662; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2013.10.016

International audience Experiments were carried out with a high-pressure (HP) differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and a HP unit using frozen agar gel (3%, w/w) and Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Small samples (0.54–0.7 g) were prepared for HP DSC tests. Frozen samples of agar gel and salmon muscle in cylinders (47.5 mm diameter, 135 mm length) were subjected to water immersion thawing (WIT) (20 °C) and HP thawing at 100, 150 and 200 MPa with a water temperature of 20 °C. Phase transition temperature of agar gel was close to the phase diagram of pure water. Melting temperature of salmon was significantly lower than phase diagram of pure water probably due to the presence of solutes and cellular structures in fish. HP DSC tests demonstrated a good correlation between temperature (T) and average pressure (P): T = −1.22–0.0946P − 0.000115P2 (R2 = 0.99, n = 10). High pressure caused a depression of the ice-melting temperature resulting in an accelerated thawing process. The reduction of melting plateau time can be predicated by using Plank’s model. For frozen agar gel, the total thawing time was 50.3 ± 2.7, 36.4 ± 2.2 and 30.8 ± 1.8 min, or 73, 53 and 45% of WIT time (68.7 ± 4.3 min) at 100, 150 and 200 MPa, respectively. For frozen fish, the total thawing time was 58.9 ± 2.8, 41.8 ± 4.7, 37.2 ± 2.6 and 33.8 ± 1.9 min for WIT, HPT at above pressures, respectively.