Donghong Liu

College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science , Zhejiang University

The deterioration of the environment, the reduction of land resources, the surge of food demand, the decrease of labor population ratio and the rapid rise of labor cost bring unprecedented challenges to the future food manufacturing. Digital design and manufacturing of food is the cross-fertilization of food manufacturing technology with digital technology, intelligent technology and new generation information technology, which is the inevitable trend of future food manufacturing development. This report reviews the research progress of Zhejiang University team in recent years from the aspects of digitalization of food processing, digital design of food equipment, and intelligent manufacturing of food. Based on the three basic principles of "momentum transfer", "heat transfer" and "mass transfer" in food processing, the team combined with partial differential equations to carry out simulation and optimization of complex food processing systems to improve processing efficiency. Simulation and optimization to improve processing efficiency and reduce quality deterioration. Digital design of food equipment to achieve rapid design, visualization and performance evaluation of equipment, shorten the development cycle and reduce development costs. Intelligent equipment integrates the knowledge and experience of experts into the perception, decision-making, execution and other manufacturing activities, giving product manufacturing online learning and knowledge evolution capabilities, with independent decision-making, adaptive working conditions and human-machine interaction features, to achieve full monitoring of the visualization of the production process, automatic process data collection rate of more than 90%, production scheduling, equipment operation and performance management intelligence. At present, the team has independently developed key equipment such as thermal sterilization intelligent control system, flexible intelligent extraction production line and multi-functional aseptic filling. In the future, digital design and manufacturing of food will definitely play a greater role in the food industry and lead the food industry into a new stage of development.