ABSTRACT
Mixing and agitation are fundamental unit operations in food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Additionally, mixing becomes a prerequisite for improvement in various sensory qualities of food products, such as texture, flavour and colour. Some challenges in the designing of food mixing systems include sanitary design, complex rheology, interactions among heterogeneous phases and energy-efficient high-capacity continuous mixing process. Mixing can be accomplished using mechanical agitation with impellers, intense vibration, impinging one material into other with jet of fluid, fluidization or tumbling. Various mixing operations are involved in the preparation of different foods. Specific solid–liquid mixing mechanism is applied for the preparation of texturized products. In mixing of liquids, a cylindrical vessel with round or dish bottom is generally used. Agitation is carried out using specific impellers. Agitation in a gassed system is followed by aerobic fermentation processes to meet the demand for oxygen by the microorganisms.
