Radiofrequency (RF) heating was simulated for improving the microbial safety of a shell egg immersed in deionized water using a finite element model. A regression equation that relates the top electrode voltage to the gap between the electrodes and vertical position of the egg was also developed. The root mean squared errors between the simulation and validation results ranged from 0.76 to 2.86 °C. Concentrated heating occurred in the yolk in all the investigated configurations, with some configurations reaching close to 60 °C in the yolk after 20 min of RF heating. The cooling effect of the water along with lower electric field intensity in the egg caused the focused heating in the yolk. Extrapolation of the model revealed that a scaled-up RF heating process (10.5 kV at top electrode) followed by a hot water immersion process can achieve a minimum of 3 log reductions of Salmonella in the yolk within 37 min. PRACTICAL APPLICATION Radiofrequency (RF) heating with the assistance of deionized water was shown to have the potential of improving the microbial safety of shell eggs. The validated model results revealed that this effect was due to a combination of focused heating and surface cooling.

中文翻译：

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射频加热提高浸没在去离子水中的蛋的微生物安全性

使用有限元模型模拟射频 (RF) 加热以提高浸入去离子水中的带壳蛋的微生物安全性。还开发了一个回归方程，将顶部电极电压与电极之间的间隙和鸡蛋的垂直位置联系起来。模拟和验证结果之间的均方根误差范围为 0.76 至 2.86 °C。在所有研究的配置中，蛋黄中都发生了集中加热，在射频加热 20 分钟后，一些配置在蛋黄中达到接近 60°C。水的冷却效果以及鸡蛋中较低的电场强度导致蛋黄中的集中加热。模型的外推表明，放大的射频加热过程 (10. 5 kV 在顶部电极处）然后进行热水浸泡过程可以在 37 分钟内使蛋黄中的沙门氏菌减少至少 3 个对数。实际应用 在去离子水的辅助下进行射频 (RF) 加热被证明具有提高带壳蛋微生物安全性的潜力。经验证的模型结果表明，这种效应是由于集中加热和表面冷却的结合。