Application of hydrodynamic cavitation in food processing

A systematic analysis of the applications of hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) in the food sector along with a detailed discussion of the reactor configurations and the effect of geometrical/operating parameters has been presented in this chapter. Various reactor configurations have been highlighted with a facility to control the cavitational effects as required suiting a specific application. It has been demonstrated that HC has been extensively applied for the enhancement of various functional properties, microbial inactivation, extraction, etc. in the case of food processing. Some upcoming innovative applications such as gluten-free beer production, degumming of crude soybean oil, and formation of Greek styled yogurt using HC have also shown recent attention and described in the chapter. Furthermore, to understand the impact of HC as well as the energy and economics involved, a comparison with more commonly applied acoustic cavitation (AC) based on the use of ultrasound has been discussed for some applications. Overall, the HC holds good promise to intensify the numerous food processing steps giving a greener, energy-efficient, and a low-cost alternative to the conventional and ultrasound based methods.