High pressure homogenization (HPH) technology has been studied by various authors as a non-thermal process for liquid food preservation. However, the fluid characteristics during processing, as also the cell inactivation and disruption mechanisms have still not been totally elucidated. The present work evaluated the flow of skimmed milk during HPH using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The homogenization pressure was varied up to 300 MPa and the pressure and velocity profiles evaluated during the process. The results obtained showed that the shear stress due to the flow of the liquid inside the gap and the cavitation on exiting, are the most probable mechanisms of microbial inactivation in the homogenizer evaluated.
High pressure homogenization (HPH); Milk; Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
