Microwave Heating as an Alternative Quarantine Method for Disinfestation of Stored Food Grains

Insects and pests constitute a major threat to food supplies all over the world. Some estimates put the loss of food grains because of infestation to about 40% of the world production. Contemporary disinfestation methods are chemical fumigation, ionizing radiation, controlled atmosphere, conventiona...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ipsita Das, Girish Kumar, Narendra G. Shah
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2013-01-01
Series:International Journal of Food Science
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/926468
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Insects and pests constitute a major threat to food supplies all over the world. Some estimates put the loss of food grains because of infestation to about 40% of the world production. Contemporary disinfestation methods are chemical fumigation, ionizing radiation, controlled atmosphere, conventional hot air treatment, and dielectric heating, that is, radio frequency and microwave energy, and so forth. Though chemical fumigation is being used extensively in stored food grains, regulatory issues, insect resistance, and environmental concerns demand technically effective and environmentally sound quarantine methods. Recent studies have indicated that microwave treatment is a potential means of replacing other techniques because of selective heating, pollution free environment, equivalent or better quality retention, energy minimization, and so forth. The current paper reviews the recent advances in Microwave (MW) disinfestation of stored food products and its principle and experimental results from previous studies in order to establish the usefulness of this technology.
ISSN:2314-5765