A review of commercial process simulators applied to food processing

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to give a state of art of the application of commercial process simulators that describes food process transformations from a macro approach, considering the mass and energy balances and the physical and chemical changes, immersed in the context of the whole industrial plant. Most popular commercial software's and its characteristics are exposed. Additionally, the most relevant works in the field are discussed, with emphasis on physicochemical properties of food matrices, the selection of the fluid package and strategies to simulate several common processing stages involved. This review includes a wide variety of food and beverages process like evaporation, concentration, distillation, fermentative reactions, membrane separation and oil refining. Simulated models are an effective tool when several scenarios need to be considered. This area orientated to food processing simulation, still needs to incorporate equation-oriented approaches and adapt to more versatile operational management.