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Food Science & Technology vocabulary · Food Processing

Heat exchanger

Meaning in food science & technology, with examples

nounCommon term

In food science & technology, heat exchanger means: A piece of equipment that transfers heat between two fluids without mixing them, for example to heat milk with hot water or to cool it with ice water.

In Turkish: ısı değiştirici, ısı eşanjörü, eşanjör

How it is used

Common types are plate heat exchangers (PHE) in milk and juice pasteurizers, tubular ones for thicker products and scraped-surface ones for very viscous foods. In a pasteurizer, the regeneration section uses hot product to preheat cold product and save energy. Tiny cracks in the plates can cause contamination.

Example sentences

  1. A crack in the plate heat exchanger let cooling water leak into the pasteurized milk.

  2. We open and inspect the heat exchanger plates once a year.

Common collocations

  • plate heat exchanger
  • tubular heat exchanger
  • scraped-surface heat exchanger
  • regeneration section
  • heat transfer
  • pasteurizationA mild heat treatment that kills most disease-causing and many spoilage microorganisms while keeping the taste and nutrients of the food as unchanged as possible.
  • heat treatmentAny process that uses heat to make food safe, extend its shelf life or change its properties, such as pasteurization, sterilization, blanching or cooking.
  • clean-in-placeAn automatic system that cleans the inside of pipes, tanks, heat exchangers and fillers by circulating water and cleaning chemicals, without taking the equipment apart.
  • UHTUltra-high temperature: a heat treatment that heats a liquid food to about 135–150 °C for a few seconds and then packs it aseptically, so it keeps for months without refrigeration.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Food Processing

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