cause over- or under-heating problems. Continuous rotary heating
was used in this study to improve heating uniformity. For industrial production,
achieving a desirable heating rate and uniformity could be implemented
by other means, such as designing a curved-shape emitter to
match the tomato geometry and increasing the emitter power density.
This research has developed and demonstrated the concept of using
IR heating as a sustainable and non-chemical approach for peeling
tomatoes. Based on the results of this research, a prototype IR drypeeling
system has been recently designed and built. In the scaled-up
IR dry-peeling system, the primary function of IR heating is to loosen
tomato peel from flesh through the rapid heat treatment. The loosened
peels were subsequently released by a vacuum chamber and removed
by mechanical pinch rollers. The developed IR dry-peeling technology
yields high quality peeled tomatoes and greatly simplifies waste management
of peeling residues due to the elimination of chemicals and
water, which is a significant step towards a sustainable peeling process.
Elimination of chemical contaminations and water usage allows huge
savings in water and water-related energy consumption. Because no
chemicals are used in peeling, produced peels offer the potential
for recovery as a value-added byproduct, which merits our further
investigations.