2022 Annual Meeting
Development of Proof of Concept Experiments for a Novel Food Engineering Course
In recent years, the growth of the food engineering industry has been spurred by the increasing concerns of global food availability and accessibility. Understanding the principles of engineering as they apply to food processing and production is of increasing interest to students as this industry continues to grow. As such, it is of interest to provide a course which introduces students to the relevance, principles, and design thinking associated with food engineering in industry. In developing a novel food engineering elective for the Lafayette College Chemical Engineering Department, it is of utmost importance to provide students with hands-on experience as part of the course. This research poster will discuss the proof of concept work done for multiple experiments designed to be taught in a food engineering elective course. The design parameters taken into consideration for these experiments were experiment run time, costs associated with the experiment, and whether useful data could be gathered. The specific experiments which will be highlighted are the dehydration of macarons, developing a freezing profile of sorbet, and product testing and development with different types of gelatin. These experiments were designed to give students experience with mass and heat transfer, R&D, and data collection and analysis, all as it applies to food engineering and industry, in an economical and time efficient manner.