| Abstract: | Electrical conductivity (EC) is an important property during ohmic thawing of seafood. EC of frozen flounder, tiger and white shrimp, and shrimp shells at different voltages and temperatures (T) was measured. The materials were homogenized in a blender. PVC tubes (lengths: 4.1 to 5.6 cm, diameter: 1.5 cm) were filled with the material and fitted with circular stainless steel electrodes connected to a DC power supply. The tubes were frozen to constant Ts (-16 to -4°C). Voltage gradient (VL, 8.3 to 122 Volts/cm) and current were measured with multimeters. The calculated specific conductivity (SpC = Siemens/m) depended strongly on temperature. VL had a small effect on SpC. An equation of the form SpC = a + b VL + c exp(d/T + f/T2) was fitted to the data. R2 values for shrimp shells, tiger shrimp, and flounder were 0.96, 0.83, and 0.64, respectively. |
