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Article: La lumiere pulsee, s'il vous plait; after a few years' hiatus, pulsed light has re-emerged as a purification and sterilization tool for food and beverage manufacturers, beginning with packaging applications.(ENGINEERING R&D)(Interview)
- Article from:
- Food Engineering
- Article date:
- June 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 BNP Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Sustainable manufacturing practices are well and good, but when new technologies help lower costs by expending fewer resources, business people sit up and take notice. Using low-power electron-beam emitters to sterilize packaging material instead of hydrogen peroxide, for example, doesn't simply reduce water use, it lowers operating cost by a factor of seven (see "E-beam makes a comeback," Food Engineering, March 2009).
The same economies work in favor of cleaning with pulsed light. Japanese scientists pioneered the use of short, intense bursts of light for decontamination 40 years ago, and US defense contractor Maxwell ...