The current status of microwave equipment development

Microwave application technology has been developing in China for nearly three decades. Although it is still an emerging field of application, the reliability and practicality of microwave equipment have been continuously improved in recent years with the continuous progress of modern science and technology. The manufacturing technology of professional microwave manufacturers has also become more mature, and manufacturing costs have significantly decreased. Many microwave food processing equipment are characterized by simple operation, continuous and stable operation, resistance to no-load conditions, and convenient maintenance. In the early stages of microwave technology development, microwave equipment had many typical shortcomings: uneven heating, high failure rate, poor reliability, and difficulty in operation and maintenance. These have now been thoroughly improved.

When conventional microwave food processing equipment is used for dehydration and drying, it can remove 0.5 to 1 kilogram of water per kilowatt-hour of electricity consumption; for sterilization and preservation, it can process 7 to 12 kilograms of material per kilowatt-hour of electricity consumption. For thawing and puffing materials, it can process 12 to 24 kilograms of material per kilowatt-hour of electricity consumption. When ordering microwave food processing equipment, it is important to consider not only the appearance, price, and quality. As microwave equipment, there are three important performance indicators that must be understood: 1. Microwave leakage: The leakage of microwave energy from microwave equipment is harmful to human health. The microwave leakage at the equipment's inlet and outlet, furnace door, operating area, etc. should comply with relevant national standards. 2. Overall efficiency: Microwave equipment should be energy-efficient and high-performance. The overall thermal conversion efficiency of the equipment produced by professional manufacturers should be above 50%. 3. Uniformity: Regardless of whether the microwave equipment is used for heating, drying, or sterilization, the temperature rise difference of the heated material should be less than ±5℃. Only in this way can the consistency of microwave heating effects be ensured.

The design of microwave equipment is based on electromagnetic wave transmission theory. Technical personnel engaged in equipment design generally lack understanding of food processing and characteristics, while the extensive experience accumulated by food process researchers in conventional food heating cannot be fully transplanted to microwave heating systems. The integration of the two requires a certain amount of time, which is the obstacle currently encountered in the promotion of microwave technology in the food industry. Fortunately, we have entered the information age, and cooperation between industries will soon break this bottleneck. Compared with foreign microwave equipment, domestic microwave technology itself is not inferior, but there are significant gaps in mechatronics technology, automatic control level, overall operational reliability, and production line supporting capabilities. This is a topic that domestic scientific researchers engaged in microwave application technology urgently need to address with great efforts in the future.