QUANTITATIVE-EVALUATION OF THERMAL-PROCESSES USING TIME-TEMPERATURE INTEGRATORS

The further development of new heating technologies, process assessmen t and process optimization in the thermal processing of foods is limit ed by the applicability of currently used process evaluation methodolo gies. Therefore, considerable effort has been and will continue to be put into the development of specific sensors - time-temperature integr ators (TTIs)- which can allow faster, easy and correct de termination of the impact of a process on a product attribute without the need for detailed knowledge of the actual time-temperature history of the prod uct. This article presents the current state of the art regarding TTI development to monitor thermal processes, as well as a discussion of t he possible applications and limitations of several types of TTI syste ms.