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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Open Source Vacuum Oven Design For Low-Temperature Drying: Performance Evaluation For Recycled Pet And Biomass, Benjamin R. Hubbard, Lindsay I. Putman, Stephen Techtmann, Joshua M. Pearce May 2021

Open Source Vacuum Oven Design For Low-Temperature Drying: Performance Evaluation For Recycled Pet And Biomass, Benjamin R. Hubbard, Lindsay I. Putman, Stephen Techtmann, Joshua M. Pearce

Michigan Tech Publications

Vacuum drying can dehydrate materials further than dry heat methods, while protecting sensitive materials from thermal degradation. Many industries have shifted to vacuum drying as cost-or time-saving measures. Small-scale vacuum drying, however, has been limited by the high costs of specialty scientific tools. To make vacuum drying more accessible, this study provides design and performance information for a small-scale open source vacuum oven, which can be fabricated from off-the-shelf and 3-D printed components. The oven is tested for drying speed and effectiveness on both waste plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and a consortium of bacteria developed for bioprocessing of terephthalate wastes …


Research Tools And Their Uses For Determining The Thermal Inactivation Kinetics Of Salmonella In Low-Moisture Foods, Soon Kiat Lau Apr 2020

Research Tools And Their Uses For Determining The Thermal Inactivation Kinetics Of Salmonella In Low-Moisture Foods, Soon Kiat Lau

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The reputation of low-moisture foods as safe foods has been crumbling over the past decade due to repeated involvement in foodborne illness outbreaks. Although various pasteurization technologies exist, a majority are thermal processes and have not been well-characterized for pasteurizing low-moisture foods. In addition, the nature of a low-moisture food matrix introduces various experimental complications that are not encountered in high-moisture foods. In this dissertation, the development, building instructions, and characterization of various open source tools for studying the inactivation kinetics of microorganisms in low-moisture foods are described. The first tool is the TDT Sandwich, a dry heating device for …