Although originally developed for fat globule disruption in dairy applications, high-pressure homogenizers are extensively used in other food processing applications. Two newer applications are in forming nanoemulsion for delivering supplemented nutrients and as a preservation technique, both using higher pressures than traditional applications. This has raised concern that friction heat created in the homogenizer causes thermal degradation to temperature sensitive molecules such as nutrients. This contribution uses a numerical model to give insight into temperature profiles for drops in a homogenizer valve and investigates when homogenization at elevated pressures is expected to cause thermal degradation. A fast method for estimating the extent of degradation for a given application is also proposed. It is concluded that no thermal degradation is expected inside the valve, almost regardless of operating conditions, due to the short residence time. Provided that cooling is applied after the homogenizer, degradation downstream of the valve can also be avoided.

中文翻译：

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高压均质会导致营养物质热降解吗？

虽然最初开发用于乳制品应用中的脂肪球破碎，但高压均质机广泛用于其他食品加工应用。两个较新的应用是形成纳米乳液以提供补充营养素和作为保存技术，两者都使用比传统应用更高的压力。这引起了人们的担忧，即均质器中产生的摩擦热会导致对温度敏感分子（如营养物质）的热降解。此贡献使用数值模型深入了解均质器阀中的下降温度分布，并研究在高压下均质化预计何时会导致热降解。还提出了一种用于估计给定应用的退化程度的快速方法。得出的结论是，由于停留时间短，几乎不管操作条件如何，预计阀门内部不会发生热降解。如果在均质器之后进行冷却，也可以避免阀门下游的退化。