Journal of Food Engineering 91 (2009) 341346

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Journal of Food Engineering

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Coagulation of protein in surimi wastewater using a continuous ohmic heater

K. Kanjanapongkul a, S. Tia b, P. Wongsa-Ngasri c, T. Yoovidhya a,*
a
Department of Food Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology Thonburi, 126 Pracha U-tid Road, Bangmod, Tungkru, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
b
Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology Thonburi, 126 Pracha U-tid Road, Bangmod,
Tungkru, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
c
Fisheries Technological Development Division, Department of Fisheries, Kasetsart Campus, Jatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A continuous ohmic heating system has been developed to coagulate protein from surimi wastewater to
Received 21 December 2007 reduce the biological oxygen demand of the wastewater. A simple model, based on the energy conserva-
Received in revised form 12 September tion equation, was used to predict the temperature proles of the wastewater. Samples were diluted and
2008
NaCl solution (10% by wt.) was added to make them suitable for testing in the developed device. All sam-
Accepted 16 September 2008
Available online 23 September 2008
ples were heated under different conditions (electric eld strength of 20, 25, and 30 V/cm; ow rates of
100, 200, and 300 cc/min). After heating the samples were centrifuged and the remaining protein in
supernatants was measured and compared with the results from the previous batch experiments. Heat-
Keywords:
Electrical conductivity
ing under higher electric eld strength and lower ow rate values resulted in higher temperatures of
Ohmic heating samples. The predicted temperature values agreed well with the experimental results. The amount of
Protein coagulation the remaining protein was also in agreement with that of the previous work. The lab-scale ohmic heating
Surimi wastewater system possessed good performance to coagulate protein (60%) from surimi wastewater.
Wastewater treatment 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction of use. In Thailand, Threadn bream (Nemipterus spp.), a demer-

Wastewater treatment is one of the problems in surimi produc-
tion due to the high volume and high biological oxygen demand
(BOD) of the water. Traditional water treatment using biological
methods requires long period of time and large digesting volume
to hold the wastewater until it is treated to an acceptable level
of BOD. This might limit the production capacity if land resources
are limited. Thus, nding alternative methods of wastewater treat-
ment that offers shorter process time and require less area is con-
sidered useful. Protein coagulation under heating and subsequent
separation is one alternative method to reduce the BOD of waste-
water having high protein concentration. To this end ohmic heat-
ing is an efcient heating method that uses electric energy to
directly heat the uid. The advantages of using ohmic heating in-
clude simple system requirement, being a clean technology since
no chemical additives are used in the process, ability to quickly
and uniformly heat the subject (Sastry, 1994) and being a highly
energy-efcient method (Huang et al., 1997). Thus, ohmic heating
might be a viable alternative for wastewater treatment in surimi
production plants.
Various kinds of shes are used as raw materials in surimi pro-
duction. The selection of samples used in this study was carefully
considered, taking into account the availability and the amount
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +662 470 9241; fax: +662 470 9240.
E-mail address: tipaporn.yoo@kmutt.ac.th (T. Yoovidhya).
sal sh, is one of the important raw materials in surimi production.
The surimi obtained is white, provides smooth texture with good
avor and has good gel-forming properties (Holmes et al., 1992;
Morrissey and Tan, 2000). It has been reported that 102, 121, and
113 thousand metric tons of threadn bream was caught from
the Gulf of Thailand and Indian Ocean in 2000, 2002, and 2003,
respectively (Department of Fisheries, Thailand, 20032005).
These numbers reect the high demand for using threadn bream
in the production of sh products, including surimi. However, due
to the lack of available information concerning the application of
ohmic heating for protein recovery from threadn bream surimi
wastewater, research, especially on continuous ohmic heating, is
considered essential.
Typically, ohmic heating may be classied into batch and con-
tinuous processes. Huang et al. (1997) studied the effect of heating
on coagulation of protein from sh mince wash water, which was
obtained from frozen pacic whiting, using batch ohmic heating.
They suggested that the highest heating temperature for effective
coagulation of protein and reduction of chemical oxygen demand,
total solids, and total soluble solids was 70 C. This is supported by
the results of Kanjanapongkul et al. (2008) who developed a batch
ohmic heater to investigate the reduction of solids contained in
threadn bream surimi wastewater as well as to examine the elec-
trical conductivity of the samples. In this latter work it was also
found that the optimum heating temperature was 70 C. After
heating to 50, 60, and 70 C, the remaining protein in the samples

0260-8774/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2008.09.010
342 K. Kanjanapongkul et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 91 (2009) 341346

Nomenclature

A cross sectional area (m2) V voltage (V)

a, b arbitrary constants tz velocity (m/s)
Cp specic heat (kJ/kgC) XP mass ratio of protein in the uid sample
E electric eld strength (V/m) XM mass ratio of moisture in the uid sample
L length (m)
I electric current (A) Greek symbols
n number of the small section q density (kg/m3)
R resistance (X) r electrical conductivity (S/cm)
T temperature (C)
Tent, Tmid, Text temperatures at the entrance, middle, and exit of
the heating chamber (C)

was reduced to 63%, 49%, and 42%, respectively, compared with the was conducted over a relatively narrow temperature range (20
initial values. Further heating to 80 C resulted in just a slight 80 C), it was reasonable to use the average temperature to esti-
reduction of protein (39%). At 70 C, the BOD value of the sample mate the specic heat capacity and density of the sample; the val-
was reduced to 23%. These results suggested the potential of using ues were then xed in the model.
ohmic heating to improve surimi wastewater quality. However, a Two methods of solution, analytical and numerical, were em-
batch ohmic heating system obviously has limited commercial ployed in this work. An analytical solution could be obtained di-
application since most surimi production plants continuously re- rectly by integration once a simple function of uid electrical
lease wastewater from their production lines. From an engineering conductivity with temperature is known. In the case of a complex
perspective, a uniform load is preferred to an irregular increase/de- function, a numerical method, adapted from the work of Sastry
crease of load. A continuous process should thus be considered. (1992), is more suitable.
The objectives of this research were to construct a lab-scale
continuous ohmic heating system and to propose a simple model 2.1. Method I. Analytical method
that can be used to predict the temperature of surimi wastewater
during steady-state heating in the developed device. The reduction According to Kanjanapongkul et al. (2008), it was noted that the
of protein after the treatment was measured and compared with electrical conductivity of the uid sample had a linear relationship
the results from the available batch data. with the temperature:
r aT b 3
2. Mathematical model
Assuming that all other physical properties of the samples are
A schematic diagram of the continuous ohmic cell is presented constant over the range of tested temperature, the solution of Eq.
in Fig. 1. There are six electrodes, which generated ve heating (1), after integration, becomes:
zones with an equal electric eld strength E. Based on the one- " ! #
1 aE2 z
dimensional energy conservation equation with the assumption Tz aT ent b exp b 4
a 1000qC p vz
that the electrical eld was uniform and the energy loss and heat
conduction in uid phase were neglected, the temperature of the
uid along the length of the ohmic heater under the assumed plug 2.2. Method II. Numerical method
ow condition could be written as (Sastry, 1992):

rE2 oT
qC p vz
1000 oz
The specic heat capacity of the surimi wastewater was esti-
mated from its protein and moisture mass fraction information
using Eq. (2) (Heldman and Singh, 1981):
C p 1:549X P 4:187X M
For NaCl solution (10% by wt.), the specic heat capacity was
estimated as 4.1 kJ/kg C (Liphard et al., 1976). Since the sample
contained less than 0.2% w/w of protein, its density was assumed
to be equal to that of pure water. In addition, since the experiment
The estimation of temperature T(z) was adapted from the meth-
1 od described by Sastry (1992). The solution procedures are sum-
marized below:
1. Dividing the heating chamber into n small sections; the thick-
ness of each section is represented by dz, which equals to the
2 total length of the heating section (L) divided by n. The electric
eld strength Ei is rstly assumed to be V/L for all sections. The
model geometry is as presented in Fig. 2.

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the continuous ohmic heater with six electrodes; the
temperatures of the sample were measured at the entrance (Tent), middle (Tmid), and Fig. 2. Geometry of the heating chamber of the developed continuous ohmic
exit (Text). ( = electrodes). heating system.
 K. Kanjanapongkul et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 91 (2009) 341346 343

2. Estimating the temperature in any incremental section Ti+1
using the following equation:
 
ri Ei 2 T i  T i1
qC p vz
1000 dz
Once the inlet temperature of uid, T0, is known, it is possible
to calculate the temperature T1, T2, . . . , Tn. The electrical con-
ductivity of each section, ri, is estimated from Eq. (3) using
the average temperature value, (Ti+Ti1)/2.
3. Estimating the total resistance R from the summation of the
resistance of each individual section where the resistance of
section i, Ri, is calculated using Eq. (6)
L increasing either the cell length (to increase the heating time) or
Ri ; 6
ri A
X
n
R Ri :
i1
4. Estimating the electric current I:
V However, the electrical conductivity of the diluted sample was
I :
R 0.14 S/cm. In order to compensate for the effect of dilution, small
5. Recalculating the electric eld strength across each section Ei:
IRi
Ei : 9
dz
6. Repeating steps 25 until the temperature of each individual
section converged.
3. Materials and methods
The experiment required two kinds of uid samples: 0.02 M
NaCl and surimi wastewater. The NaCl solution was used to ver-
ify the accuracy of the developed system by comparing the
experimental temperature results with the predicted values using
the above two models. All experiments were conducted in
duplicate.
3.1. Surimi wastewater collection and preparation
Surimi wastewater samples were obtained from a local surimi
production plant. Whole threadn bream was headed, gutted,
washed and minced using a meat-bone separator before being
washed in the rst washing tank and subsequently dewatered
and washed in the other two washing tanks. The sample was col-
lected from the rst washing tank since most water-soluble pro-
tein in the minced sh was dissolved in the rst washing tank
(Thongraunga, 2001), resulting in the highest BOD value. Then,
the sample was kept cool in plastic bottles during transportation
to the laboratory. The initial protein concentration in the collected
sample was 6.2 g/l and the concentration of NaCl in the wastewater
5
was in the range of 0.3%0.5% (w/v).
Surimi wastewater samples were diluted with tap water. The
main objective of dilution was to minimize the effect of protein
fouling at the electrode surface during sample heating. However,
dilution would not be necessary at the industrial scale since such
problems can be mitigated by increasing the ow rate of wastewa-
ter to entrain the coagulated protein away from the electrode.
Although doing so would result in shorter residence time in the cell
and lower heating temperature, these could be compensated by
electric eld strength (to obtain higher heating rate, which could
not be done in this experiment due to limitation of power supply).
7 Due to the limitation of the developed system, the maximum elec-
tric eld strength that could be safely used was 30 V/cm. In order
to heat the sample from 20 to 70 C, it was necessary that the elec-
trical conductivity of the sample (at 20 C) be more than 0.2 S/m.
8
amount of NaCl solution was added. For the sake of convenience,
NaCl solution (10% by wt.) was prepared and used as stock solu-
tion. The preliminary test to nd a suitable ratio between the di-
luted sample and NaCl solution was conducted by varying the
ratio among surimi wastewater, tap water, and NaCl solution.
The electrical conductivity of the mixed sample was measured
using the procedure described in Section 3.2. After the preliminary
test, the volume ratio of the surimi wastewater:tap water:NaCl
solution of 20:60:3 was used. The protein concentration in the di-
luted sample and its electrical conductivity at 20 C was 1.5 g/l and
0.3 S/m, respectively.
3.2. Measurement of electrical conductivity
The batch ohmic heating system was used to measure the elec-
trical conductivity of the samples. The system consists of a T-ohmic
cell (see Fig. 3), variable transformer (0240 V), digital recordable
power meter (Yokogawa, WT110, Japan) (0.2%) and data logger
(Yokogawa, DR 610, Japan) (0.1 C) connected with a calibrated
K-type thermocouple (1 C). Thermocouple was shielded in a cap-
illary glass tube to prevent the effect of electric eld on the mea-
sured temperatures. The T-ohmic cell was made from an acrylic
tube having a length and internal diameter of 300 mm and
50 mm, respectively. Two circular 316 stainless steel electrodes
were xed at each side of the cell with the distance of 75 mm

a b
Removable plug & thermocouple guide Thermocouple probe, = 1 mm

Circular stainless steel

electrode on electrode guide

Capillary glass tube

ID ~ 2 mm

Fig. 3. (a) Static ohmic cell used for electrical conductivity measurement; (b) Schematic diagram showing the use of capillary glass tube to prevent thermocouple from
electric eld interference.
344 K. Kanjanapongkul et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 91 (2009) 341346

between each electrode. The variable transformer was used to gen- 4. Results and discussion
erate the desired electric eld strength (10, 20, and 30 V/cm) and a
digital power meter was used to record the voltage across the cell 4.1. Experiment on NaCl solution
and the electric current at every 10 sec interval.
The sample of 170 ml was loaded into the cell and air bubbles 4.1.1. Measurement of electrical conductivity
were removed to ensure the precision of electrical conductivity The electrical conductivity of 0.02 M NaCl solution was exam-
measurement. The sample was then heated under the electric eld ined using the static ohmic heating device. The temperature
strength (10, 20, and 30 V/cm) until reaching the desired tempera- dependence equation of electrical conductivity was determined
ture (70 C or higher). The temperature, voltage and current were as presented in Fig. 5. The linear relationship between the electrical
recorded at every 10 sec interval. With the assumption that there conductivity and temperature was obtained and found to agree
was no voltage drop across the wiring and connectors in the circuit, well with the previous ohmic heating experiments using various
the electrical conductivity of the surimi wastewater could be cal- concentrations of NaCl solution (Sukprasert, 1998).
culated using Eq. (10):
IL 4.1.2. Ohmic heating experiment
r 10 Fig. 6 shows the plot between the predicted temperature and
VA
experimental data at all conditions studied. Maximum error be-
tween the predicted temperature and experimental one was about
3.3. Ohmic heating experiment
9% when the ow rate was 75 ml/min. At a lower ow rate, the ef-
fect of heat conduction in uid phase along the heater outlet to the
The continuous ohmic heating system was developed to heat
inlet direction on the temperature became more signicant than at
the samples. The system consists of an ohmic cell, a variable trans-
a higher ow rate. Therefore, the temperatures measured from the
former (0240 V), digital recordable power meter (Yokogawa,
WT110, Japan) (0.2%), data logger (Yokogawa, DR 610, Japan)
(0.1 C) connected with three calibrated K-type thermocouples
0.60
(1 C) (shielded in capillary glass tubes), screw pump, supply tank, Electrical conductivity (S/m)
recycle tank and collecting tank (see Fig. 4). The ohmic cell was 2
0.50 = 0.0046T + 0.1134; R = 0.9975
made from an acrylic tube having a length and internal diameter
of 700 mm and 14 mm, respectively. Six cylindrical stainless steel
electrodes were lined in series with a constant distance of 0.40
80 mm between each electrode. After each batch of heating the cell
and all electrodes were carefully washed to ensure that there was 0.30
no deposition of protein or other residuals. Every heating experi-
ment was performed using the same set of electrodes. A vari- Run 1: 10 V/cm Run 2: 10 V/cm
0.20 Run 3: 20 V/cm Run 4: 20 V/cm
able-speed pump and ball valve were used to control the ow
Run 5: 30 V/cm Run 6: 30 V/cm
rate of the uid. A digital meter was used to record the voltage
0.10
across the cell and the electric current at every 10 sec interval. Dur- 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
ing heating steady-state temperature of the uid sample was mea-
Temperature (C)
sured and compared with the predicted value obtained from
solving Eq. (1) using both analytical and numerical methods. Fig. 5. Electrical conductivity of 0.02 M NaCl solution.

3.4. Remaining protein analysis

80
The amount of the remaining protein in the treated sample was Flow rate 300 ml/min test#1
analyzed using the Kjeldahl method with the conversion factor of 75 Flow rate 300 ml/min test#2 a) +8.47%
6.25 according to AOAC standard methods (AOAC, 1995). The ob- Flow rate 150 ml/min test#1
tained results were compared with those obtained from the previ- 70 Flow rate 150 ml/min test#2
Flow rate 100 ml/min test#1
ous static experiments (Kanjanapongkul, 2007).
Flow rate 100 ml/min test#2
Predicted temperature (C)

65
Flow rate 75 ml/min test#1
60
Flow rate 75 ml/min test#2
b) -8.47%
7 55
6
50

4 5 45 2
R = 0.9890
1 2 9 40
Tent Tmid Text

35
8
30

3 25
25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80
Fig. 4. The continuous ohmic heating system. 1, 2, 9: Supply, recycle and collecting Experimental temperature (C)
tank, respectively; 3: screw pump; 4: ball valve; 5: continuous ohmic cell; 6:
variable transformer; 7: digital power meter; 8: temperature recorder connected Fig. 6. Plot between predicted and experimental temperatures of 0.02 M NaCl. The
with three calibrated K-type thermocouples. error limit is shown by dotted lines.
 K. Kanjanapongkul et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 91 (2009) 341346 345

experiment were higher than the predicted values. At a high ow 80

rate, convection overcame the conduction mode and the predicted Flow rate 300 m l/min test#1
75
a) +12.43%
values became closer to the temperatures measured from the Flow rate 300 m l/min test#2
experiment.
70 Flow rate 200 m l/min test#1
Flow rate 200 m l/min test#2

Predicted temperature (C)

4.2. Experiment on surimi wastewater 65
Flow rate 100 m l/min test#1
4.2.1. Ohmic heating experiment 60 Flow rate 100 m l/min test#2
The correlation between the electrical conductivity and temper-
ature of the sample is presented as: 55
b) -12.43%
r 0:0063T 0:1740; R2 0:9958 11 50

Unlike the NaCl solution, there were suspended solids obtained 45

from protein coagulation during heating of the surimi wastewater.
At very low ow rate, these solids accumulated at the exit of the 40 2
cell and acted as an insulator, which affected the heating rate of R = 0.9558
the system. Thus the low ow rate of 75 ml/min was not subse- 35
quently used in the study; only the ow rates of 100, 200, and
30
300 ml/min were used. During ohmic heating at all levels of elec-
tric eld strength, there was no corrosion of the electrodes or arc- 25
ing observed. This indicated that the magnitude of electric eld 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80
strength was applicable to the ohmic heating used in this study. Experimental temperature (C)
The temperatures of the samples, both from the experiments and
model prediction are shown in Table 1. Fig. 7. Plot between predicted and experimental temperatures of the surimi
The prediction at higher ow rate, showing the same trend as wastewater sample. The error limit is shown by dotted lines.

that found in the case of 0.02 M NaCl (Section 4.1.2), gave more
accurate result than those at lower ow rates (see Fig. 7). At high
ow rates (200 and 300 ml/min), the errors between the predicted
and measured temperatures were less than 4%. However, when the
ow rate was decreased to 100 ml/min, larger differences between
the temperatures obtained from the model and from the experi-
ment were observed; maximum error of 12.43% was noted when
the sample was heated under the electric eld strength of 30 V/
cm at a ow rate of 100 ml/min. At this condition, there was an
accumulation of protein at the last electrode near the exit of the
cell. This phenomenon occurred only at the position near the last
electrode because the uid temperature near the exit was high en-
ough for protein coagulation. Because the temperature of the sam-
ple at the mentioned position was around 6070 C, it could be
expected that 5060% of the protein contained in the sample coag-
ulated (see Section 4.2.2). Some portion of the protein solids was

Table 1
Comparison of temperatures of diluted surimi wastewater sample obtained from model prediction using analytical method (method I) and numerical method (method II) and
from the experiments

Flow rate (ml/min) E (V/cm)a Temperature (C)

Tentb Tmidc Textd
e e f f
Exp Exp Method I Diff% Method II Diff% Expe Method I Diff%f Method II Diff%f
g
Rep 1
300 20 28.1 29.9 30.6 2.34 30.6 2.34 32.4 33.2 2.47 33.2 2.47
25 28.3 32.8 32.3 1.52 32.3 1.52 36.7 36.5 0.54 36.5 0.54
30 28.7 34.4 34.5 0.29 34.5 0.29 39.6 41.0 3.54 40.9 3.28
200 20 29.0 33.1 32.9 0.60 32.8 0.91 37.0 37.0 0.00 36.9 0.27
25 29.1 35.7 35.2 1.40 35.2 1.40 42.8 42.0 1.87 42.0 1.87
30 29.5 39.9 38.6 3.26 38.6 3.26 49.9 49.2 1.40 49.1 1.60
100 20 29.7 38.7 37.8 2.33 37.8 2.33 47.4 47.0 0.84 46.9 1.05
25 30.0 46.5 43.2 7.10 43.2 7.10 58.2 59.3 1.89 59.2 1.72
30 30.1 57.1 50.0 12.43 50.4 11.73 70.6 76.8 8.78 77.0 9.07

Rep 2g
300 20 28.5 30.3 31.0 2.31 31.0 2.31 33.0 33.7 2.12 33.6 1.82
25 28.5 33.2 32.5 2.11 32.5 2.11 37.1 36.8 0.81 36.7 1.08
30 28.3 34.2 34.1 0.29 34.1 0.29 40.4 40.5 0.25 40.4 0.00
200 20 28.8 32.7 32.6 0.31 32.6 0.31 36.6 36.7 0.27 36.7 0.27
25 29.3 36.2 35.5 1.93 35.5 1.93 43.4 42.3 2.53 42.2 2.76
30 29.5 39.7 38.6 2.77 38.6 2.77 50.2 49.2 1.99 49.1 2.19
100 20 29.6 38.9 37.7 3.08 37.7 3.08 47.1 46.8 0.64 46.7 0.85
25 29.8 46.1 42.9 6.94 43.0 6.72 57.8 59.0 2.08 58.9 1.90
30 30.5 56.7 50.5 10.93 50.9 10.23 70.2 77.5 10.40 77.7 10.68
a
Electric eld strength.
b,c,d
The temperatures at z = 0 (entrance), 0.2 m (middle), and 0.4 m (exit) (see Fig. 1).
e
Experimentally measured temperature.
f
Difference PredictedExperimental
valueExperimental value
value
 100%.
g
Two data sets were statistically tested using paired t-test method and no signicant differences between them were found (p < 0.05).
346 K. Kanjanapongkul et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 91 (2009) 341346
100
90
% Remaining protein
80
70
60
50
40
30 Experiment
Results from correlation (obtained from static ohmic heating system)
20
30 40 50 60 70
Temperature (C)
Fig. 8. Percentage of remaining protein in the wastewater sample after heating to
different temperatures. Predicted results were from correlation of Kanjanapongkul
(2007).
loosely bound with the electrode and gradually accumulated as the
sample was further heated until the sample temperature reached
steady-state. These solids might play a role as an insulating mate-
rial and decreased the overall electrical conductivity of the sample
as suggested by Gurin et al. (2007). Consequently, the heating rate
of the uid decreased and its temperature Text was lower than the
predicted values. Moreover, the protein solids possibly created
pressure drop that decreased the ow rate and increased the resi-
dence time of the sample. So the temperature of the uid sample at
the middle of the cell became higher than the predicted value.
Although there were still some differences between the actual
and predicted temperatures, the applied models are simple and
provide good prediction at some ow rates.
Some suggestions are noted here to improve the system perfor-
mance: (1) Operating the system at an appropriate ow rate to-
gether with an increase in the electric eld strength and heating
chamber length to prevent the protein solid accumulation; (2)
Using the cross eld ohmic cell, as described by Vicente et al.
(2006).
4.2.2. The amount of the remaining protein
Fig. 8 shows the plot of the remaining protein after heating to
different temperatures. The results conrmed that no differences
in the amount of the remaining protein in the sample heated either
by the batch or continuous ohmic heating system. Thus, the sample
temperature is considered the key parameter for protein removal
from surimi wastewater.
5. Conclusion
A simple model proposed in this study, which could be solved
either by the analytical or numerical method was used to predict
the temperature of uid samples (NaCl solution and surimi waste-
water) during ohmic heating. In the case of NaCl, the maximum er-
ror of 9% was found when the ow rate was 75 ml/min. For surimi
wastewater, high accuracy (error < 4%) was obtained when com-
paring the predicted values with the experimental data for heating
in the continuous ohmic heating system at high ow rate, while
lower accuracy (12% error) was found when the ow rate was
100 ml/min. The temperature of the uid obtained from both the
experiment and model prediction increased with the electric eld
strength but with a decrease in the ow rate. The model gave bet-
ter prediction of the uid temperature at a higher ow rate, where
heat convection overcame uid phase heat conduction. Overall, it
can be concluded that the developed continuous ohmic heating
system offers adequate performance and is sufciently controllable
in order to obtain desired heating temperature for protein coagula-
tion from surimi wastewater.
80
Acknowledgement
The authors express their special thanks to the Fisheries Tech-
nological Development Division, Department of Fisheries for the
nancial support of this work.
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