Otimização do Processo de Esterilização de Alimentos Enlatados: Monitoramento Computacional e Integração de Dados na Nuvem

Abstract

Thermal sterilization of canned foods is essential to ensure microbiological safety and product stability. This study aimed to simulate the thermal behavior of artichoke pâté during sterilization, validating the results through mathematical modeling and computational simulation. The product was chosen due to its low acidity (pH > 4.5), making it susceptible to contamination by Clostridium botulinum, whose spores have high thermal resistance. The process modeling was performed using the Finite Volume Method (FVM) with high-order reconstruction, ensuring greater simulation accuracy. Thermal diffusivity was considered a function of temperature, with parameters determined by optimization, minimizing the error between the simulated results and the experimental data. The differential equation of heat conduction was solved by the Implicit Euler Method, ensuring numerical stability. The update of the solution in time required the N-dimensional Newton Method, enabling the simultaneous resolution of the control volume equations. The Jacobian Matrix was used to approximate the derivatives, ensuring the convergence of the numerical solutions. In addition to the simulation, a remote monitoring system based on a client-server architecture via TCP/IP was implemented, allowing real-time transmission and analysis of temperature data. The accumulated lethality (F₀), a determining parameter for the process effectiveness, was calculated by the Trapezoidal Rule, ensuring continuous updating as the data were acquired. The results showed good correlation with the experimental values reported in the literature, validating the developed model with satisfactory accuracy. The lethality calculation confirmed that the thermal parameters were sufficient for the inactivation of Clostridium botulinum, ensuring the microbiological safety of the product. The integration between mathematical modeling and remote monitoring offers good potential for improving the performance of the temperature control system of the thermal processing unit operation traditionally used in the food industry. It is concluded that the methodology proposed in this study represents an advance in the computational modeling of sterilization, contributing to the modernization and efficiency of industrial processes.