RELATION of BACTERIAL DESTRUCTION to CHEMICAL MARKER FORMATION DURING PROCESSING BY THERMAL PULSES1

This paper presents a formulation in dimensionless terms of the equations pertaining to first-order processes that follow Arrhenius kinetics, and applies them to problems in food thermoprocessing. the need for it arose from attempts to understand the relation between destruction of pathogenic microorganisms and formation of chemical markers in the food. During processing food is subjected to a thermal pulse that affects the markers and microorganisms. the dimensionless formulation makes it convenient to obtain equations expressing the relation between the decadic reduction in microbial population and the rise in marker concentration for temperature-time profiles of forms hitherto not conveniently calculable. Measurements of chemical markers can be used with these formulas to predict destruction of microorganisms. Examples are given of calculations demonstrating the feasibility of this approach when a single marker is monitored.