Study of tomato fiber fragmentation in the high-pressure homogenizer

Abstract: Homogenization is commonly used in many food processes in which products pass through a narrow gap causing break down of large particles into smaller one thereby reducing creaming and sedimentation of the products. This study aims to investigate fragmentation of tomato fibers and test which breaking mechanisms are dominating in a high-pressure homogenizer. The study also includes the influence of several passages’ homogenization. Numerous mechanisms of particles disruption have been proposed, including viscous shear, turbulence, cavitation, squeezing and impingement with a solid surface. However recent researches suggested fragmentation by turbulence, and cavitation as the primary mechanisms for emulsions drop break up in the homogenization valve. The study discusses fragmentation by laminar shear, turbulent inertial, turbulent viscous as well as squeezing. Several hypotheses have been suggested to explain which breaking mechanisms are controlling fiber fragmentation in the high-pressure homogenizer. Each of the mechanism results in quantifiable predictions about operating conditions: The laminar viscous mechanism implies that increasing of homogenization pressure and continuous phase viscosity would lead to smaller particles size for the tomato suspension. Turbulent inertial implies no impact of serum viscosity on the particles break up, while turbulent viscous predict that higher continues phase viscosity results in smaller particles size. Both of turbulent theories agreed on smaller suspension particles obtained by higher homogenization pressure with a relation described as d