Air-suspension coating in the food industry: Part II — micro-level process approach

A review of air-suspension particle coating concluded that, in order to speed product and process development, a phenomenological approach is necessary to develop generic guidelines for the selection of coating materials and process variables. This paper identifies 10 fundamental phenomena (micro-level processes) that occur during an air-suspension particle coating process: particle motion, atomisation, droplet–particle collision, droplet impact and adherence, droplet impact and spreading, infiltration, drying, film formation, layering and inter-particle agglomeration. Their relevance to the coating objectives is discussed and from these four are identified as key micro-level processes: drying, droplet impact and spreading, and stickiness which encompasses the two key micro-level processes of droplet impact and adherence and inter-particle agglomeration. It is believed that significant advances in particle coating research can be made through examination of these key micro-level processes.