Design of microwave heating continuous belt system for palm fruit

This paper presents a design of microwave heating continuous belt system for palm fruit var. Tenera. Heating is aimed to deactivate the mechanism of lipase enzyme which produces Free Fatty Acids in the palm fruit. The design is simulated using Finite Element Method via COMSOL^TM Multiphysics. The 3.2 kW heating system consists of four 800W magnetrons operating at 2.45 GHz. The electric field pattern in the multi-mode chamber cavity is solved to make it uniform and is applied to calculate the temperature distribution in the fruit. The uniform electric field in the cavity together with the temperature distribution of the palm fruit fed with continuous conveyor belt through the cavity was found to increase the excited microwave energy at an optimum heating time of 120 sec. This confirms a possibility of the design for heating palm fruit application.