Food Process Engineering Mission Projects at IITB
IIT Bombay has developed an appreciation of the challenges, as well as opportunities in this area over the last decade, and has played a leading role in conceptualizing a Technology Development Mission Project (funded by MHRD, Govt. of India) on Food Process Engineering with IIT Kharagpur, IISc, Bangalore, and several industry partners. The projects addressed four major areas described below:

Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SCFE) process1
SCFE process can help the Indian industry to compete in a fast growing international market for value-added natural products. Presently, the high cost of imported SCFE equipment deters economically viable use of SCFE technology. Our objective has been to develop viable, world-class SCFE technology through indigenous design and manufacture of components. The SCFE prototype plant designed and installed at IIT Bombay has state-of-the-art safety and process control features of commercial SCFE plants. It is used for technology demonstration, scale-up studies, test sample (extract) generation, and process optimization. Products extracted using this technology have the advantages of purity, high concentrations and extended shelf life. The process allows flexible operating conditions for multiple product extraction, and simultaneous fractionation of extract. It also eliminates toxic residues due to the use of supercritical CO2 as solvent. The technology has been licensed, and SCFE plants based on this technology have been sold to industries in India and abroad. More details at www.iitbombay.com

Controlled Atmosphere (CA) Technology for Long term Storage of food grains 2
CA storage consists of reduction of oxygen by elevating nitrogen and/or carbon dioxide concentrations in storage units, so as to enable preservation of the quality of food products during storage. The technique of chemical fumigation that is widely used for storage, although effective to an extent, is not environment friendly. As an alternative, a Pressure Swing Adsorption N2 generator was designed and established at IIT Bombay. This aids the creation of nitrogen and/or carbon dioxide-rich, and oxygen-depleted atmosphere in a storage unit. Bag-stacked items such as, cereal grains, seeds and black tea have been successfully stored without any infestation, moisture pick-up, and with superior quality maintenance in terms of taste, color, lustre and aroma. The choice of plastic films used as covering material for the stored grains was based on their gas permeability and water vapour transmission rates. The work has culminated in the transfer of the CA technology. More recently another project on black-tea storage has been executed, and the resulting technology transferred after filing an international patent jointly with the industrial partner.

Engine exhaust-fired Truck Refrigeration System (TRS) 3
Proper refrigeration is critical to the transport of perishable items. A novel technology developed at IIT Bombay, which utilizes engine exhaust has shown encouraging results with both prototype testing and full demonstration. The engine exhaust-fired TRS can replace the conventional dedicated engine-driven vapour compression truck refrigeration system (DEDVCRS) used for transporting fresh fruits, flowers and vegetables, frozen vegetables, fish, meat and ice cream. The TRS can be slightly modified for use in milk transport trucks. The salient features of the system are: rugged and reliable design due to few moving parts, low life-cycle costs due to lower initial and operating costs, and the use of environment friendly ammonia as refrigerant......more on next page

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