Energy and exergy analysis of induction-assisted batch processing in food production: a case study-strawberry jam production

Traditional and additive free conservation techniques for long shelf life of fruits can be counted as drying and canning or processing to jam-marmalade. Conventional systems consume fuel or electricity to produce required energy with low efficiency due to losses and irreversibilities through heat transfer. For strawberry jam production, heat is applied as a batch system by vacuum-jacketed agitated vessel with a water or heating oil (heat transfer fluid-HTF), which is heated by electricity inside the jacket. In this study, energy and exergy efficiencies of conventional jacketed vessels and inductive heater were compared theoretically for jam processing. It is found that water and HTF used systems works with 82.27% and 93.38% energy efficiencies, respectively, while inductive processing system works with 95.00% efficiency. In terms of irreversibilities, the inductive system generates 79.90 kJ K-1 entropy, while other systems generate 674.19 kJ K-1 for HTF system and 753.90 kJ K-1 for the water system. It is determined that the batch system with induction heater needs less energy and exergy input than conventional electrical heater systems to provide the same desired output. Direct heating by induction heater has several benefits at thermal food processing systems as strawberry jam production by lowering energy and exergy losses. Graphic abstract