A review of commercial process simulators applied to food processing

摘要

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