INTRODUCTION

Food is a complex system; being of biological origin, it is subject to a

great variability in its composition and structure (Toledo, 1991); added to the above
changes in composition that occur during typical processes of the
food industry, such as freezing, evaporation, dehydration, etc.; this
it makes it difficult to know its behavior and its physical properties.
Among the most common properties of foods are the properties
thermal, closely linked to thermal processes. The thermal properties
involved in the different thermal processes are: thermal conductivity, heat
specific and thermal diffusivity.
Although in the literature one can find some experimental information about
the thermal properties of some common foods, the vast amount of
food products, their different compositions, and the different temperatures at
that the processes are carried out, make the possibilities of finding a value
suitable be reduced.

The thermal properties of foods are defined as:

Specific heat (CpIt is the measure of the amount of energy that accompanies the change.
of one unit of temperature per unit of mass. Its units are (J/kgºC).

Thermal conductivity (k): It is equal to the heat flow from an area when it
increase it temperature in a unit and the distance in a unit of
length. Its units are (W/mºC).

Thermal diffusivity It is the relationship between thermal conductivity and heat.

specific due to its density. Its units are (m2/s).

Due to the need to evaluate these properties, many have been proposed.
expressions that allow predicting thermal properties based on the
components of food; among these are the Siebel equations (1912),
Dickerson (1969) and Charm (1978) for the determination of specific heat; Maxwell
(1904), Riedel (1949), Earle (1966), Sweat (1974), Harper (1976), Rask(1989),
Lind(1991), etc. for thermal conductivity.

Choi and Okos (1987) studied the effect of variation in composition on the
thermal properties achieving correlations for the following components:
humidity, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, fibers, and ashes. These correlations are
function solely of the temperature to which the food is exposed.

The correlations found to evaluate specific heat in (J/kg°C) are of the

the different components are as follows:

Cp proteins = 2008.2 + 12089.0-3T – 1312.9·10-6T2

Clipids1984.2 + 1473.3 × 10-3T – 4800.8·10-6T2
Cp carbohydrates 1548.8 + 19625-3T – 5939.9·10-6T2
Cp fiber 1845.9 + 19306-3T - 4650.9 × 10-6T2
Cto ashes = 1092.6 + 1889.6·10-3T – 3681.7·10-6T2

For water above freezing:

Cfor water 4176.2 - 9.0862·10-5T + 5473.1·10-6T2

where T is the temperature of the food in ºC

Being Cpof the food:

Cp food = Cpi·Xi
where XiFood component fraction

For the thermal conductivity evaluated in (W/mºC), of the different components are
the following:

k water= 0.57109 + 0.0017625T - 6.7376·10-6T2

kproteins= 0.1788 + 0.0011958T - 2.7178·10-6T2
k lipids= 0.1807 - 0.0027604T - 1.7749·10-7T2
k carbohydrates= 0.2014 + 0.0013874T - 4.3312·10-6T2
k fiber= 0.18331 + 0.0012497T - 3.1683·10-6T2
k ashes0.3296 + 0.001401T - 2.9069·10-6T2

The thermal conductivity of the food is calculated as:

kfood= ki· Xvi

Where XIit is the volume fraction of each component of the food and it
determine the mass fraction Xi, of individual density ( i) and of the density of
food food):

Xvi= (Xi· food / i)

The individual densities in (kg/m3)are obtained from the equations

next:

water = 997.18 + 0.0031439T - 0.0037574T2

proteins= 1329.9 - 0.51814T

lipids= 925.59 - 0.41757T

carbohydrates= 1599.1 - 0.31046T

fiber= 1311.5 - 0.36589T

ashes= 2423.8 - 0.28063T

The thermal diffusivity of foods is calculated from the density, heat

specific and thermal conductivity through the following formula:
 food = kfood .
CP food · food

The calculation of the thermal properties of food using these

manual correlations are quite tedious and require a lot of time, so
what is required from the use of new tools that allow the evaluation of these
properties accurately and reliably in a short time. If these are combined
equations posed by Choi and Okos with computational resources are simplified
enormously the assessment of these properties.
This work proposes a program that contains a database.
based on the 'Chemical Composition Table of Chilean Foods' whose author is
Dr. Hermann Schmidt-Hebbel, for a large number of foods. This database
contains different tables in which foods were grouped according to the order that
the author gave them and within these is each of the foods with its name and
required percentage composition for the calculations of its thermal properties.

In Tables No. 1 and No. 2, the calculations of Cp and k are indicated respectively for some
foods obtained experimentally, and compared with those provided by the
proposed program.

Table No. 1 Specific heats of foods

Product. Water Proteins Heat Cp
(%). (%). (%). (%). (%). specific delivered
experiment for
to the program
(kJ/kg °K). (kJ/kg °K)(3)
Butter 15.5 0.6 0.4 81.0 2.5 2.051- 2.315
2.135
14 - - - - 2.050(2)
Milk 87.0 3.5 4.9 3.9 0.7 3.852(1) 3.866
whole
pasteurized
a
Fish 76.0 19.0 - - 1.4 3.600(1) 3.577
fresco
Potatoes 79.8 2.1 17.1 0.1 0.9 3.517(1) 3.661
Apple 84.4 0.2 14.5 0.6 0.3 3.726- 3.814
4.019(1)
75 - - - - 3.370(2)
Lamb 68.0 21.0 0.0 10.0 1.0 3.223(1) 3.481
Sardines 57.4 25.7 1.2 11.0 0.0 3.0.14(1) 3.162
Cheese 65.0 25.0 1.0 2.0 7.0 3.265(1) 3.336
Carrot 88.2 1.2 9.3 0.3 1.1 3.810- 3.875
3.935(1)
88.0 - - - - 3.890(2) 3.879
Pig 60 - - - - 2.850(2) 3.208
Chicken 74 - - - - 3.310(2) 3.383
Spinach 87 - - - - 3.800(2) 3.910
Bread 48.5 - - - - 2850(2) 2.547
Flour 13 - - - - 1800(2) 1.982
Egg 87 - - - - 3.850(2) 3.340
Heldman (1981)
Toledo (1991)
The specific heats were evaluated at 25ºC
Table No. 2 Thermal conductivity of foods
Product. Content of Temperature Conductivity k delivered by the
Humidity (°C). Thermal program
(%). (W/mºK) (W/mºK)(3)
Carrots - - 0.6058(2) 0.5811
Lamb - 5.5 0.4777(2) 0.4803
Tomato - - 0.5279 (2)
0.5952
White egg - 36 0.577(1) 0.5644
- - 0.338 (2)

Muscle 0-10 0.557(1) 0.5215

fish - -10 1.497 (2)

Milk - 37 0.530(1) 0.58720

Pork 75.9 4 0.443(1) 0.4875
- 6 0.4881 (2)
0.4902
Dad 81.5 1-32 0.554(1) 0.5576
- - 0.554 (2)

(1) Heldman (1981)

(2) Toledo (1991)
The thermal conductivities that appeared with the evaluation temperature were calculated at 25ºC.
Tabla Nº3 Características Térmicas de manzanas. (*)

Parameter. Golden Delicious. Granny Smith. Results

of the program
Unfrozen Frozen Unfrozen Frozen
Percentage of 87.3 87.3 85.8 85.8 84.2
Humidity (%)
Conductivity 0.427 1.45 0.398 1.22 0.325
Thermal
(W/mºC).
Calor Específico 3.69 1.95 3.58 1.68 3.764
(kJ/kgºC)
Density (kg/m38.45 7.88 8.29 7.86 10.58
(10 ).
2

Diffusivity 1.37 9.43 1.34 9.26 1.313

Thermal (m /s)
2

(10-7).
Ramaswary and Tung (1981)

Although the values provided by the program are not identical in all
In some cases, it should be taken into account that information was only available in some.
the temperature at which the experimental values were obtained.
Since Table No. 1 contained all the components of the food, the
values turned out to be very similar, which demonstrates the importance of having
all the information at the time of comparing experimental values.
It is important to consider that the correlations of Choi and Okos were determined
for liquid foods and do not take into account the interaction of the components of
food to evaluate its thermal properties.

PROGRAMMING ALGORITHM: FLOWCHART.

 START START

ELECTION OF PERCENTAGES
IN WEIGHT OF THE
DERIVED
COMPONENTS
DAIRY
Yes
%>
100
FRACTIONS IN No
WEIGHT OF THE
COMPONENTS
FROM THE MILK OR
DERIVED TEMPERATURE

Yes
T > 250º
C

No

CORRELATIONS OF
CHOI AND OKOS

% of the
components K,
Cp, y

THE END

SYMBOLISM:

RESULT
ENTRY OF INSTRUCTION Yes
DATA SCREEN
 DATA
STORED DECISION

SOLUTION OF THE EXERCISE

Determine the thermal conductivity, the specific heat, and the

thermal diffusion, at 17°C, of a food product that has been
chemically analyzed and whose weight composition is 78%
18% water, 3% carbohydrates, 0.2% proteins, 0.2% fats
y 0.8%. Ash, using the equations of Choi and Okos.

Thermal conductivity

Carbohydrates:
Protein:

Fat:
Ashes:

Specific heat

Carbohydrates:
Protein:
Fat:
Ash

Thermal diffusivity

Carbohydrates:

Protein:
Fat:
Ash

Density ρ

Water: ρ
ρ
Protein
Fat:

Ash
BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Bifani, V.; Etchberrigaray, M.; Moyano, P. and Osorio, F. (1995). Design of a

Tubular Heat Exchanger for Vegetable Pulp Treatment. Food
20 (3-4): 41-50

Gratzek, P. J. and Toledo, R. T., (1993). Solid Food Thermal Conductivity Determination
at High Temperature, J. Food Sci. 58 (4): 910-913.

Heldman, D. and Singh, R. (1981). Food Process Engineering, second edition, Avi
Publishing Company, 100-108, 401-403.

Pérez, M.G. and Calvelo, A., (1984). Modeling the Thermal Conductivity of Cooked Meat,
J. Food Sci. 49 (1): 152-156.

Specific Heat of Selected Seafood

Ramaswary, H.S. and Tung, M.A., (1981). Thermophysical Properties of Apples in

Relation to Freezing, J. Food Sci. 46 (3): 724-728.

Schmidt – Hebbel, H. and Pennacchiotti, I. (1985). Table of Chemical Composition of the

Chilean Foods, seventh edition, University Press, Santiago, 13-30.

Toledo, Romeo, (1991). Fundamentals of Food Process Engineering, second edition.

Chapman & Hall, New York, 132-139.

Unklesbay, N.; Unklesbay, K.; Nahaisi, M.; Kravse, G., (1981). Thermal Conductivity
of White Bread During Convective Heat Processing, J. Food Sci. 47 (1): 249-253.