Energy Consumption Analysis of a Continuous Flow Ohmic Heater with Advanced Process Controls

OLUWOLE-OJO, Oluwaloba Nifemi, ZHANG, Hongwei, HOWARTH, Martin and XU, Xu (2023). Energy Consumption Analysis of a Continuous Flow Ohmic Heater with Advanced Process Controls. Energies, 16 (2): 868.

Preview

PDF Oluwole-Ojo-EnergyConsumptionAnalysis(VoR).pdf - Published Version Creative Commons Attribution. Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the energy consumption of a continuous flow ohmic heater (CFOH) with advanced process controls for heating operations in the food and drinks industry. The study was carried out by using operational data collected from a CFOH pilot plant that was designed and constructed at the National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering (NCEFE), Sheffield Hallam University. The CFOH is controlled by a PC and includes an onboard Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and a Human Machine Interface (HMI) so that it can be operated as a stand-alone unit with basic on/off and power setting control but without any advanced control features. The technical solution presented in this paper for heating foods demonstrates significant energy saving compared with conventional heating methods. Using the CFOH, the electric current generated in the food products by the Joule effect produces a rapid temperature increase with very high energy efficiency. This technique eliminates the low efficiency of heat transfer from the surface of vessels typically used to heat and cook food products. The analysis presented in this paper describes the energy consumption of the CFOH and compares the efficiency of the CFOH when different advanced process control techniques are used. Experimental results and analysis have shown that the CFOH can achieve an energy efficiency conversion of at least 87.9%. It has also shown that the energy conversion percentage can be increased by applying advanced controllers such as model predictive control (MPC) or adaptive model predictive control (AMPC).

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	ohmic heating (OH); energy efficiency; continuous flow ohmic heater (CFOH); advanced process control; 02 Physical Sciences; 09 Engineering
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.3390/en16020868
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Elements
Depositing User:	Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited:	12 Jan 2023 11:47
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2023 08:03
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/31299

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads

Publication Metrics