Comparative life cycle assessment of ohmic and conventional heating for fruit and vegetable products: The role of the mix of energy sources

The study aims at comparing the environmental performances of the indirect heat exchanger and the ohmic heater for foodstuff decontamination. By means of a Life Cycle Assessment, adopting ReCiPe 2016 midpoint (H) method, applied to the sterilization of diced tomatoes and to the pasteurization of diced peaches for a standard company respectively in Italy and in Australia, it emerged that environmental impact of ohmic heating is higher than the indirect one. Having the ohmic heater the electric energy as the main contributor, a sensitivity analysis is added to investigate the impact of the mix of primary sources. Relevant savings in global warming potential are achieved when the French energy mix is used (77.1% on tomatoes and 87.7% on peaches) or when 100% of the energy source comes from photovoltaic panels (79.7% and 88.5% respectively). Finally, the combined use of the two technologies has been investigated, resulting to be an intermediate solution compared to the others.

Automated summary

This study aims to compare the environmental performances of indirect heat exchanger and ohmic heater for foodstuff decontamination. Using a Life Cycle Assessment with ReCiPe 2016 midpoint (H) method, the study found that ohmic heating has a higher environmental impact than indirect heating. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the impact of different energy sources, and significant reductions in global warming potential were achieved when using the French energy mix or 100% energy from photovoltaic panels. The combined use of both technologies was also investigated, resulting in an intermediate solution.