Dielektrische Eigenschaften von Lebensmitteln

The complex dielectric properties of food materials, that aggravate the prediction of their heating performance in volumetric heating processes, result from the superposition of different influencing factors like chemical composition, water and salt content, structure, temperature and frequency range. In order to receive the dielectric food data necessary for the engineering of microwave or radio-frequency heating processes, techniques and equipment for the measurement of dielectric food properties have been established at the Fh-ILV. As an result of a number of measurement programs on simple food related systems some of the basic physical mechanisms influencing the dielectric properties of high water content foods are explained and examplified with measurements.