Journal of Food Engineering, Vol.171, 87-94, 2016
Performance of a non-invasive methodology for assessing oxygen diffusion in liquid and solid food products
Based on the measurement of local oxygen partial pressure kinetic, a non-invasive methodology was proposed to assess O-2 diffusivity (DO2) in liquid, viscous and solid matrices. This new method was compared with a previous invasive method, developed by the same group, based on the same principle. The new method has proven to be essential to measure DO2 in solid food matrices where invasive methods usually failed. It was successfully used to obtain DO2 of cooked ham and processed cheese which were found respectively equal to 0.450 +/- 0.004 x 10(-9) m(2). s(-1) and 1.15 +/- 0.11 x 10(-9) m(2). s(-1) at 20 degrees C. DO2 was also evaluated as a function of temperature (from 5 to 30 degrees C) and viscosity in lipid-based matrices. These results have permitted to determine activation energy of the diffusion and have revealed that increasing viscosity of the lipid matrices tested did not impact their DO2 values. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.