Recent trends in evaporation techniques

Increasing energy costs of the food industry and the necessity to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases orient the researchers to find alternative solutions to increase energy efficiency, and to decrease waste and environmental damage. Hence, the use of novel technologies comes to the fore. Since volumetric heating could be provided by Ohmic and microwave heating methods, a heating medium is not required. Thus it is possible to reduce undesirable changes in quality attributes by eliminating contact with hot surfaces and providing rapid heating. The negative effects on the environment could also be reduced owing to both utilization of efficient energy for the heating process and the elimination of wastewater. Alternative nonthermal methods including ultrasound, membrane filtration, pulsed electric field, and electroplasmolysis techniques could also be applied. In this chapter, recent studies on the evaporation techniques, regarding their system setups, effects on the quality characteristics, and performance evaluations are reviewed.