Determination of electric field intensity during microwave heating of selected vegetables and fruits.

In microwave heating process, electric field intensity is the main parameter that controls the temperature rise in the material. With this parameter and available material properties, temperature changes are predictable. In this study, a new setup based on a domestic microwave oven was developed and uniform microwave radiation at 2450 MHz was lunched normal to the base of pre-prepared cylindrical samples. Different vegetable and fruit samples including apple, banana, carrot and potato were exposed to microwave radiation and their surface temperature changes were measured. Surface electric field intensity was determined by means of temperature rise, time and sample's properties. Then, outside electric field intensity was obtained from the relation with surface value using a newly developed relation and compared with previous works. The calculated values were very close and reliable compared with previous methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]