Preliminary investigation on the mechanism of electromagnetic coupling to reduce thawing loss of frozen beef

IF 3.5 2区农林科学 Q2 BIOTECHNOLOGY & APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY

Food and Bioproducts Processing Pub Date : 2025-05-31 DOI:10.1016/j.fbp.2025.05.017

Chuan Yang , Yong Chen , Qingqing Li , Guangyu Wu , Hengxun Lin , Wei Jia , Chengjiang Liu , Chunhui Zhang , Xia Li

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Abstract

Reducing thawing loss is always a key concern in the field of meat freezing, yet the effectiveness of electric field coupled with magnetic field to assist in freezing for achieving this remains to be demonstrated. Hence, low-voltage electrostatic field (input voltage: 220 V; maximum current: 0.2 mA) coupled static magnetic field (6 mT, −18 ℃) (abbreviation electromagnetic field, EMF) was employed to assist freezing process to explore variation in freezing time, water migration, protein properties, and ice crystals of beef at freezing point, maximum ice crystal formation band end temperature point (-5 ℃), and terminal temperature point (-18 ℃), respectively. Results showed that the whole freezing time of EMF-assisted freezing (EMF-F) was shortened by 52.5 % compared with the conventional freezing, suggesting that EMF-F greatly boosted the freezing process, causing the formation of small and homogeneous intracellular and extracellular ice crystals, which minimized disruption to the muscle microstructure. The formation of tiny ice crystals under the effect of EMF would help to reduce the extent of protein denaturation (as evidenced by higher protein solubility and lower surface hydrophobicity) and maintain the protein conformation stability (as evidenced by higher α-helix content and fluorescence intensity). Then EMF-F maintained a high protein-water binding capacity, which reduced immobile water migration to free water which is the source of thawing loss. Hence, EMF-F effectively reduced the thawing loss of frozen beef.

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电磁耦合降低冷冻牛肉解冻损失机理的初步研究

减少解冻损失一直是肉类冷冻领域的一个关键问题，但电场与磁场耦合来辅助冷冻以实现这一目标的有效性仍有待证明。由此，低压静电场(输入电压：220 V；采用最大电流：0.2 mA)耦合的静态磁场（6 mT,−18℃）（简称电磁场，EMF）辅助冷冻过程，分别探索冰点、冰晶最大形成带末端温度点（-5℃）和末端温度点（-18℃）下牛肉的冷冻时间、水分迁移、蛋白质性质和冰晶的变化。结果表明，与常规冷冻相比，EMF-F的整个冷冻时间缩短了52.5 %，这表明EMF-F极大地促进了冷冻过程，使细胞内和细胞外形成小而均匀的冰晶，最大限度地减少了对肌肉微观结构的破坏。电磁场作用下微小冰晶的形成有助于降低蛋白质的变性程度（表现为蛋白质的溶解度提高，表面疏水性降低），保持蛋白质构象的稳定性（表现为更高的α-螺旋含量和荧光强度）。然后，EMF-F保持了较高的蛋白质-水结合能力，减少了固定水向自由水的迁移，而自由水是解冻损失的来源。因此，EMF-F有效地降低了冷冻牛肉的解冻损失。

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来源期刊

Food and Bioproducts Processing 工程技术-工程：化工

CiteScore

9.70

自引率

4.30%

发文量

115

审稿时长

24 days

期刊介绍： Official Journal of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering: Part C FBP aims to be the principal international journal for publication of high quality, original papers in the branches of engineering and science dedicated to the safe processing of biological products. It is the only journal to exploit the synergy between biotechnology, bioprocessing and food engineering. Papers showing how research results can be used in engineering design, and accounts of experimental or theoretical research work bringing new perspectives to established principles, highlighting unsolved problems or indicating directions for future research, are particularly welcome. Contributions that deal with new developments in equipment or processes and that can be given quantitative expression are encouraged. The journal is especially interested in papers that extend the boundaries of food and bioproducts processing. The journal has a strong emphasis on the interface between engineering and food or bioproducts. Papers that are not likely to be published are those: • Primarily concerned with food formulation • That use experimental design techniques to obtain response surfaces but gain little insight from them • That are empirical and ignore established mechanistic models, e.g., empirical drying curves • That are primarily concerned about sensory evaluation and colour • Concern the extraction, encapsulation and/or antioxidant activity of a specific biological material without providing insight that could be applied to a similar but different material, • Containing only chemical analyses of biological materials.