FST 280 2.

0 Unit Operations in Food Processing

2023/11/08
2nd Day Note

Size Reduction
What is size reduction?
It is a term related to the process in which the size of solids is reduced or broken
into smaller items. It involves creation of smaller mass units from bigger mass units of the
same material.

Methods of size reduction

solid materials Liquid materials

Cutting Grinding Emulsification

Atomization

Grinding & Cutting

Grinding and cutting reduce the size of solid materials by mechanical action, dividing them
into small particles.

In grinding, shear stress is applied on particles. Stress is applied beyond the maximum
stress that a particle can bear, so they will be fractured.

In cutting, using a sharp object, particles are divided into smaller particles.

Applications of Grinding in Food Industry

• Milling of grains to make flour.

• Grinding of corn for manufacture of corn starch.
• Grinding of sugar (Sugar makes from crystallization).

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• Milling of dried foods, such as vegetables.
• Processes meat manufacturing.

Applications of cutting in Food Industry

• Preparation of meat for retail sales Preparation of processed meats and processed
vegetables.

Grinding

The mechanism of fracture in grinding is not fully understood (because the forces that
work on the material may be changed during grinding process), but in the process, the
material is stressed by the action of mechanical moving parts in the grinding machine and
initially the stress is absorbed internally by the material as strain energy.

When the local strain energy exceeds a critical level, which is a function of the material,
fracture occurs along lines of weakness and the stored energy is released.

Some of the energy is taken up in the creation of new surface, but the greater part of it is
dissipated as heat.

In short,

✓ Grinding is an energy consuming process.

✓ In the process, most of the energy is wasted as heat.
✓ In grinding, we have to consider about the fractures. A fracture is happened from
the weakest point.

Grinding is, therefore, achieved by mechanical stress followed by rupture and the energy
required depends upon the hardness of the material and also upon the tendency of the
material to crack – its friability.

The force applied may be,

• Compression

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 • Attrition
• Impact
• Shear, and both the magnitude of the force and the time of application affect the
extent of grinding achieved.

The important factors to be studied in the grinding process are the amount of energy used
and the amount of new surface formed by grinding.

• Impact - particle concussion by a single rigid force (hammer).

• Compression - particle disintegration by two rigid forces (nutcracker).
• Shear - produced when the particle is compressed between the edges of two hard
• surfaces moving tangentially.
• Attrition - arising from particles scraping against one another or against a rigid
surface (a file).

Energy requirements for grinding

Grinding is a very inefficient process and it is important to use energy as efficiently as

possible. (Because most of energy that supply to the materials is dissipated as heat.
Therefore, the grinding process is inefficient.)

It is not easy to calculate the minimum energy required for a given reduction process.

These theories depend upon the basic assumption that the energy required to produce a
change in a particle of a typical size dimension L is a simple power function of L:

ⅆ𝐸
= 𝑘𝐿𝑛
ⅆ𝐿

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 • E - the differential energy required
• dL - the change in a typical dimension (reduction of size)
• L - the magnitude of a typical length dimension
• K,n – constants

Kick's Equation
𝐿1
𝐸 = 𝑘𝑘 𝑓𝑐 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 [ ]
𝐿2
Assumed that the energy required to reduce a material in size was directly
proportional to the size reduction ratio dL/L.

• Kk - Kick's constant
• fc - the crushing strength of the material

Rittinger's Equation

Assumed that the energy required for size reduction is directly proportional, not to
the change in length dimensions, but to the change in surface area.
1 1
𝐸 = 𝑘𝑅 𝑓𝑐 ( − )
𝐿2 𝐿1

KR - Rittinger's constant

Bond’s Equation
L is measured in microns and so Ei is the amount of energy required to reduce unit
mass of the material from an infinitely large particle size down to a particle size of
100 μm.
It is expressed in terms of q, the reduction ratio where q = L1/L2

1
100 2 1
𝐸 = 𝐸𝑖 ( ) [1 − ( )]
𝐿2 1
𝑞2

L1 – Beginning size of the material

L2 – The size after the size reduction
(No need to memorize above three equations.)

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New Surface Formed by Grinding

The surface area of a fine particulate material is large and can be important. Most
reactions are related to the surface area available.

The surface area per unit mass is called the Specific Surface. To calculate this in a
known mass of material it is necessary to know the particle-size distribution and, also
the shape factor of the particles.

The particle size gives one dimension that can be called the typical dimension, D p, of a
particle.

This has now to be related to the surface area. It can be written, arbitrarily;

𝑉 = 𝑃𝐷𝑝3

𝐴𝑝 = 6𝑞𝐷𝑝2

• V - the volume of the particle

• A - the area of the particle surface

• D - the typical dimension of the particle

• p, q - factors which connect the particle geometries.

A shape factor is now defined as q/p=λ (lambda), so that for a cube or a sphere λ = 1. It
has been found, experimentally, that for many materials when ground, the shape factor
of the resulting particles is approximately 1.75, which means that their surface area to
volume ratio is nearly twice that for a cube or a sphere.

The ratio of surface area to volume is:

𝐴𝑝 6𝑞 6𝜆
= =
𝑉𝑝 𝑝𝐷𝑝 𝐷𝑝

6𝑞𝑉𝑝 𝑉𝑃
𝐴𝜌 = = 6𝜆 ( )
𝑝𝐷𝜌 𝐷𝑝

If there is a mass m of particles of density ρP, the number of particles is m/ρPVP each of
area AP.

So total area,

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 𝑚 6𝑞𝑉𝑝 6𝑞𝑚
𝐴𝑡 = (𝜌 )× =𝜌 = 6λm/ρpDp
𝜌 𝑉𝜌 𝑝𝐷𝑝 𝑝 𝑝𝐷𝑝

Where At is the total area of the mass of particles. Above equation can be combined with
the results of sieve analysis to estimate the total surface area of a powder.

Grinding Equipment

Crushers: (a) jaw Grinders: (a) hammer mill

(b) gyratory (b) plate mill

Emulsification

Emulsions are stable suspensions of one liquid in another, the liquids being immiscible.

Stability of the emulsion is obtained by dispersion of very fine droplets of one liquid, called
the dispersed phase, through the other liquid, which is called the continuous phase.

The emulsion is stable when it can persist without change, for long periods of time, without
the droplets of the disperse phase coalescing with each other, or rising or settling.

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Examples of emulsions in food industry

• milk (fat dispersed in water)

• butter (water dispersed in fat)
• mayonnaise (oil in water)
• ice cream (fat in water which is then frozen)

Arrangement of molecules in an emulsion

The stability of an emulsion is controlled by;

• Interfacial surface forces

• Size of the disperse phase droplets,
• Viscous properties of the continuous phase (Viscosity acts as a resistance force
for
• Movements of droplets around the continuous phase)
• Density difference between the two phases. (If density difference is high, liquid
layers are easily separate. Therefore, emulsion is not stable.)

Emulsifying agents

The dispersed particles in the emulsion have a very large surface area, which is created
in the process of emulsification. Surface effects depend upon the properties of the
materials of the two phases, but very often a third component is added which is absorbed
at the interface and which helps to prevent the droplets from coalescing. Coalescing is

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two drops bump into each other with an energy greater than the barrier between them
then they join to form a larger drop. These added materials are called emulsifying agents.

e.g., phosphates and glycerol monostearate

Emulsifier and Stabilizer

The emulsifiers aid emulsion formation and short-term stabilization by interfacial action.
An emulsifier is a small molecule surfactant that is amphiphilic, having both polar or
nonpolar parts, and thus, has attraction toward both phases of the emulsion.

The emulsifying agent collects around the surface of the dispersed spheres; as a result,
the droplets cannot touch each other directly and coalescence.

Monoglycerides, polysorbates, sucrose esters, and lecithin are examples for emulsifiers.

Stabilizers are generally proteins or polysaccharides supplying long- term emulsion

stability, possibly by an adsorption mechanism. The main stabilizing action of food
polysaccharides is by modifying viscosity or gelation in aqueous phase.

Proteins act as both emulsifier and stabilizer since they have high tendency to adsorb at
oil water interfaces to form stabilizing layers around oil droplets.

Stokes' Law

Stokes' Law gives a qualitative indication of the physical factors that influence the
stability of an emulsion. This is because the relative flow of the particles under

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gravitational forces may break the emulsion, so stability is enhanced by small settling
velocities.

The factors affecting emulsion stability

• Importance of particle size, occurring as a squared term

• Why emulsions are more stable when density differences are small
• When the viscosity of the continuous phase is high

Preparation of Emulsions

The essential feature of an emulsion is the small size of the disperse phase droplets. This
can be achieved by imposing very high shearing stresses upon the liquid that is to be
dispersed and the shearing forces break the material into the multitude of fine particles.
Shearing is, generally, attained by passing the liquid through a high-pressure pump, to
bring it up to pressures of the order of 7 x 103kPa, and then discharging this pressure
suddenly by expansion of the liquid through a small gap or nozzle; the equipment is often
called a homogenizer. Centrifugal forces may also be used to obtain the shearing action.
Discs spinning at high velocities give rise to high shearing forces in liquids flowing over
them. Flow between contra-rotating discs, which may have pegs on the disc faces, can
be used to produce emulsions.

Emulsifying Equipment

• high speed mixers

• Pressure homogenisers
• Colloid mills
• Ultrasonic homoginisers

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• Hydroshear homogenisers and microfluidisers
• Colloid mills
• Ultrasonic homoginisers

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