Seligman Travel Bursary Recipient, Ozan Altin, reports from the USA

Ozan Altin was awarded a Seligman APV Travel Bursary to attend the Conference of Food Engineering in Raleigh, North Carolina. Read his report below.

‘I attended CoFE22 in Raleigh, North Carolina from 18 to 21 September 2022. I was part of the two abstracts submitted, and both were accepted as a poster presentation. One of the posters was related to my Ph.D thesis, titled “Comparison of Free Oscillator Radio Frequency Systems for the Effect of Potential Applied Electrode Configuration and Orientation”. Three radio frequency systems were compared in this study for their thermal processing efficiency, and the developed mathematical models were validated by experimental data for each case. Potential electrode configuration and the orientation effects on sample temperature distribution were then compared at three electrode gaps and for the three different radio frequency systems.

‘The second poster was related to a project by Dr Eda Demirok Soncu and Dr Ferruh Erdogdu at Ankara University. Radio frequency thawing process in bulk frozen chicken thighs experiments were carried out in this study using a 10 kW and 27.12 MHz frequency with staggered electrode configuaration on radio frequency system. I was part of this study in determining the dielectric properties of the chicken thighs as a function of temperature and also helped the mathematical model development and experimental validation.

‘The CoFE22 conference was well organised, and thanks to the organising committee. General announcements and topics were held every morning session. After that, three sessions were placed in separate conference rooms during the rest of the day. Poster boards were already reserved for each poster to exhibit through the allocated time. Posters were presented by the authors in the first day of the conference between 3:10 to 4:30 pm.

‘My research subjects are mainly about the innovative food processing approaches especially microwave and radio frequency processing. These topics were covered at the conference as very instructive and innovative features of food processing. Dr Juming Tang and Dr Josip Simunovic`s presentations about the application of microwave processing in the food industry inspired me for future studies. Mathematical modelling approaches were included in most of the studies while machine learning and artificial intelligent studies were also mentioned by most of the speakers as a combination of food processing or analysis of changes in food products during processing. Emerging technologies of recent years such as blockchain and metaverse were mentioned by Dr Sam Saguy during his presentation.

‘ In addition to all these, I had the opportunity to introduce myself to various colleagues and researchers whose manuscripts I have been reading and learning from. It was very valuable for me to discuss and get ideas from these people about my work. Meeting and networking with doctoral students from different universities was also a great opportunity and a first step towards carrying out joint projects in the future.

‘I would like to thank the SCI Seligman committee for selecting me for a bursary so I could attend the Conference of Food Engineering (CoFE22) conference. This was the first conference I`ve attended in the USA, and I was only able to attend with the Seligman APV Travel grant. Hence, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.’

Ozan Altin
PhD Student