Journal of Food Engineering 61 (2004) 181189

www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

On-line fouling/cleaning detection by measuring electric

resistanceequipment development and application to milk
fouling detection and chemical cleaning monitoring
zkan
Xiao Dong Chen *, Dolly X.Y. Li, Sean X.Q. Lin, Necati O
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
Received 29 March 2002; accepted 12 March 2003

Abstract
An electrical resistance method, which has the potential to measure the extent of soft material fouling such as milk fouling on the
surface of process equipment in situ and in real time, is described. An experimental fouling unit with the appropriate attachments
has been devised and used to monitor the fouling build-up using the electrical resistance method. Reconstituted skim milks with
solid contents of 1030 wt.% were used to produce milk foulings, and these milk foulings were cleaned using a cleaning solution with
0.5 wt.% NaOH. Using the fouling unit, it was possible to measure the thermal resistance (essentially measuring heat ux) and
electrical resistance simultaneously. As a result, the relationship between the electrical resistance and the thermal resistance during
both fouling build-ups and cleaning processes was established. It has been shown that this technique is eective for measuring the
extent of fouling, and it has the potential to be modied further so that it can be adopted in real process industries.
2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fouling; Cleaning; Soft-deposit; Process monitoring

1. Introduction gravimetric method and direct measurement of thick-

Monitoring fouling and cleaning can provide useful
information for making operational decisions in food
processing plants. Fouling is usually not visible from the
outside of the industrial processing equipment, and can
only be ascertained from signicant eects, such as
pressure drop measurement, which may not be sensitive
enough to pick up small and local deposition.
Fouling deposits in food and bioproduct processing
plants contain signicant proportions of liquid and they
are often soft and fragile. As a result, they can be de-
formed easily by contact, so that their thickness may not
be accurately measured with conventional mechanical
instruments. Furthermore, the tendency of biological
fouling deposits to shrink or slump outside their natural
environment makes it dicult to gauge them satis-
factorily in any other location (Tuladhar, Paterson,
Macleod, & Wilson, 2000). A number of early research
methods were discontinuous or invasive in nature (e.g.,
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +64-9-373-7599x7004; fax: +64-9-373-
7463.
E-mail address: d.chen@auckland.ac.nz (X.D. Chen).
0260-8774/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0260-8774(03)00085-2
ness). Continuous monitoring of the cleaning process
may be done by measuring the contaminant in the ef-
uent ow (Tuladhar et al., 2000). A number of tech-
niques have been developed over the past 25 years. Some
techniques are simple and require minimum instrumen-
tation. Others are sophisticated and provide direct
evaluation of a number of relevant parameters (Tula-
dhar et al., 2000). These devices are based on heat
transfer measurement (Bott, 1995; Lalande & Rene,
1988), pressure drop (Corrieu, Lalande, & Ferret, 1979;
Visser & Jeurnink, 1997), silicon sensor (Stenberg,
Stemme, & Kittilsland, 1988), ultrasound method
(Withers, 1996), microstrip monitoring technique (Root
& Kaufman, 1992), photothermal deection method
(Fujimori, Asakura, & Suzuki, 1987), light transmission
or reectance (Tamachkiarowa & Flemming, 1999),
ellipsometry (Karlsson, Wahlgren, & Tragardh, 1996),
quartz crystal microbalance (Colberg et al., 1998),
radiotracers (Scintillation detector) (Grant, Webb, &
Jeon, 1996, 1997; Kabin, Saez, Grant, & Carbonell,
1996; Littlejohn, Saez, & Grant, 1998; Yan, Saez,
& Eduardo, 1997), shear stress device (Bott, 1996;
Fryer, 1989), pneumatic gauging technique (Gale, 1995;
182 X.D. Chen et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 61 (2004) 181189
Tuladhar et al., 2000), and electrical conductivity
method (Bott, 1996; Diehl & Van Gelder, 1990; Gale &
Griths, 1995).
The commercially available heat ux sensors have in
fact been applied to the dairy industry in New Zealand,
which have been shown to be a reasonably reliable tool
for the operators to make rational decisions upon the
termination of a production run and the degree of
cleanness of their plant (Troung, 2001). Gale developed
a pneumatic gauging technique to measure the thickness
of leaf tissue (Gale & Griths, 1995). With this method,
air at a constant pressure discharges through a nozzle
in close proximity to the surface being examined; as
the nozzle approaches the surface, the pressure prole in
the nozzle apparatus is modied by the presence of the
surface and this can be used to infer its distance from
the nozzle. The pressure change is indicated by the
formation of a stream of bubbles in a liquid. The
thickness of a coating on the surface is then determined
by dierence, given the location of the clean surface.
Recently, the pneumatic gauging technique was im-
proved by Tuladhar et al. (2000) for detecting a whey
protein deposit layer. In the new system, the process
liquid is sucked into a nozzle presented to the surface
region to be gauged. The technique has been shown to
be very successful for studying the fouling and cleaning
kinetics on a laboratory scale (Fryer, 1997). For this
technique, the deposition must be suciently rigid to
resist signicant deformation by impingement of the
gauging uid. The gauge may sometimes distort a soft
deposit due to either the impinging jets or the suction
streams.
An automatic system was devised to measure di-
mensions of a stationary single soft sample (Diehl &
Van Gelder, 1990). Size measurement was governed by
the electrical conductivity of the material to be mea-
sured. The measurement system consisted of two sub-
systems: one to detect specimen contact and the other to
determine the specimen dimension. Contact between the
metal sensor and the specimen acted like a switch, which
closed the circuit. This technique turns out to be quite
relevant to the current study. Based on the same prin-
ciple, Gale improved Diehls system and developed a
micrometer (Gale, 1995). When the electrical contact is
established with the sample surface, further squeezing
is not necessary. For a single stationary sample, this
approach is simple, reliable and easy-to-use. It may not
be accurate when the soft layer contains air bubbles as
the sensor has to contact the surface to be measured.
The system is not suitable for on-line or in situ mea-
surement.
Milk fouling at low processing temperatures, is soft
and fragile and thus can only be monitored conve-
niently if non-touching sensors are used. Heat ux sen-
sors are appropriate from this viewpoint but they are
not sensitive enough to pick up small thickness of a milk
deposition of say less than 0.1 or 0.2 mm (Troung,
2001).
An optimal monitoring method would indicate the
location and extent of the deposit accurately. In indus-
try, this information must be acquired on-line, in situ,
non-destructively, in real time reproducibly and auto-
matically. The devices should be robust, cheap, and easy
to use. As a development towards achieving such a goal,
this paper describes a recently developed apparatus,
which measures the electrical conductivity changes
across a ow channel during both the fouling build-up
and cleaning process. The principle of such an apparatus
has been demonstrated successfully in this work. How-
ever, the practical aspects of the apparatus have to be
improved in future work.
2. Experimental
The current system has adopted two parallel stainless
steel electrodes (50
110 mm, and 10 mm apart) to
measure the electrical resistance of the fouling layer and
the liquid between the electrodes. The thermal resistance
was also measured at the same time on the fouling side
of the test section in order to obtain a realistic bench-
mark of the electric resistance measurement for fouling
(or cleaning) detection. The approach allowed the
measurement process to be automated for real time
sampling. A photograph and a schematic diagram of the
fouling apparatus are shown in Fig. 1. The system was
used to detect milk fouling under accelerated condi-
tions, which were achieved by recycling the reconstituted
milk and setting a relatively high wall temperature. The
measurement system consisted of two sub-systems: one
to detect the fouling process through measuring the
electrical resistance and the other to detect the fouling
process through measuring the thermal resistance of the
fouling as illustrated in Fig. 2. Essentially, the system
comprised the ow system, the test section, the reference
electrode, the electrical heating system, and the data
acquisition system.
The setup for producing fouling and subsequent
cleaning process mimicked a typical heat exchanger
system. Before the uid entered the test section, there
was a 1.44-m-long ow channel before the test section to
ensure that a well-developed laminar ow was estab-
lished (Fig. 1). The ow system consisted of a milk
heating tank (60 l), two 30-l cleaning solution storage
tanks (one for the alkaline and the other for the acid
solution), two pumps, two ow rotameters, a ow
channel made of a stainless steel (fouling surface), and
Perspex sheets.
The sample uid was preheated to 60 C in the tank
by an electric coil heater (PID + fuzzy logic control)
before entering the test cell. A constant fouling surface
temperature was maintained by adjusting the power
 X.D. Chen et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 61 (2004) 181189
Fig. 1. The photograph and schematic diagram of the electrical resis-
tance monitoring system.
input (where the electrical resistance and thermal resis-
tance were measured). The velocity of liquid ow was
kept at 0.05 m s1 , corresponding to a Reynolds number
of 352. In industry, Reynolds number is much higher.
Again this low Reynolds number accelerates the build-
up of fouling since the deposit removal rate was mini-
mized.
In the fouling experiments, reconstituted milk was
pumped through the ow system to generate fouling and
returned to the recycling tank. The recycling of the milk
accelerated the fouling build-up. Furthermore, the pro-
cedure used in this study helped maintain the cost of
running the trials at a manageable level.
In the cleaning experiments, the rinsing (water or
chemical solutions) uid was pumped through the ow
system to remove the deposit and returned to the tank
183
(recycling). The cleaning agent was also maintained at a
temperature of 50 C in the tank by the electrical coil
heater.
The fouling surface (or the test section; see Fig. 2)
which was made of stainless a steel (304 l) with dimen-
sions of 50
110
3 mm was embedded into a Tufnol
plate. Meanwhile, this stainless steel surface was used as
an electrode for the measurement of the electric resis-
tance during the fouling build-up. Opposite the fouling
surface, there is another stainless steel electrode
(50
110
1 mm) with ve viewing windows (15
10
mm) which permitted visual inspection of the fouling
once the feed uid was drained before the cleaning
process started and during the entire cleaning process.
The fouling surface was heated by an electric heater,
which was made of ribbon wire. This heater ensured
maximum surface contact between the heater and the
heated surface and thus minimized the heat loss. The
heater (at the outside of the fouling surface) was in-
sulated by a 10 mm thick insulation. The inside and
outside surface temperatures of the insulation were
measured using type K thermocouples. The heat loss
was calculated through the temperature dierence be-
tween the inside and outside surface of the insulation.
The input power of the heater was measured by a power
meter (0.5%). The temperature of the back of the
fouling surface (i.e. behind the steel plate for deposit
formation) was measured by six sets of type K thermo-
couples, which were distributed and embedded in the
fouling walls. The thermal resistance (RF ) can be de-
duced using these measurements.
A reference electrode was used to measure the elec-
trical resistance of the feed uid. This cell had the same
dimension as the above test cell. The dierence in the
electric resistance measured between the two cells was
smaller than 1% when the surfaces were clean. Thus the
electric resistance per unit distance of the feed uid be-
tween the electrodes can be calculated for both the test
and the reference electrode. The dierence between the
two resistances (RE ) was used to represent fouling build-
up or removal.
The inlet and outlet temperatures of the fouling uid
in the vertical rectangular channel were measured using
type K thermocouples. The bulk temperature of the
fouling uid was taken to be the average of these two
temperatures. For each fouling experiment, at the start
there was no fouling on the test surface (this lasted for
several minutes; the normal run time was >5 h). The
thermal resistance of the convection heat transfer from
the fouling surface was calculated from the following
parameters: (a) the heat-ux that passed through the
fouling surface; (b) backside surface temperature at the
back of the fouling surface and (c) the bulk temperature
of the fouling uid. After the fouling became signicant,
the thermal resistance of the fouling was calculated
by subtracting the convection resistance from the total
184 X.D. Chen et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 61 (2004) 181189

Fig. 2. Details of the test section.

resistance (fouling resistance plus convection resistance). 2.5E-03

Here, the ow condition during the fouling build-up was

RF (m2.kW -1)
assumed to be the same as that during the cleaning 2.0E-03

process.
The general steps of the experiments are summarized 1.5E-03

below:
Thermal resistance

1.0E-03

(i) Prepare the fouling liquid (reconstituting the milk

powder to the desired solids content) or cleaning so- 5.0E-04 Run 1

lution, and transfer them to the storage tank. Run 2

(ii) Switch on the pump and the heater. 0.0E+00

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(iii) Once the temperature of the fouling (or cleaning)
(a) Electrical resistance RE ()
liquid reaches the set-point, run the data acquisition
system and switch on the heater of the fouling sur- 0.004
RF (m2.kW-1)

face. 0.0035

(iv) As fouling increases (or decreases), the heater 0.003

power input to the fouling surface is adjusted to
0.0025
keep the fouling surface temperature constant.
Thermal resistance

0.002
(v) At the end of each fouling run, switch o the power
of the heater. Let the fouling liquid run several 0.0015

minutes until the temperature dierence between 0.001

the fouling surface and the bulk liquid is less than 0.0005
Run 1
Run 2
3 C (otherwise, water will be removed from the
0
fouling deposit) and then switch o the pump. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(vi) Take the fouling sample from the surface if neces- (b) Electrical resistance RE ()
sary for analysis.
Fig. 3. Reproducibility tests.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. The electrical resistance and thermal resistance
The reproducibility of fouling and cleaning mea-
surements by detecting the electrical resistance changes
during a fouling run is illustrated in Fig. 3. The electric
resistances obtained in fouling runs at three dierent
temperatures are given in Fig. 4. At the beginning of the
fouling runs, very low and nearly constant electrical
resistance values were recorded, and this region is re-
ferred to as the induction period. The induction period
was shortened when the temperature of the fouling
surface was increased. After the induction period, the
rate of change of the electrical resistance (dRE =dt) was
 X.D. Chen et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 61 (2004) 181189 185

8 4.0E-03

RF (m2.kW-1)
88
88C 3.5E-03
7 96C
96C 2
y = -0.001x + 0.0044x 115C
RE()

3.0E-03 2
6 115C R = 0.9886

2.5E-03 y = -9E-05x 2 + 0.0013x

5 R2 = 0.9913
Electrical resistance

Thermal resistance
2.0E-03
4
1.5E-03
2
y = -1E-06x + 0.0003x
3 2
1.0E-03 R = 0.9947

2 5.0E-04

1 0.0E+00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0 Electrical resistance R ()
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 E
Fouling time (min)
Fig. 6. Comparison of the three fouling trials at dierent surface.
Fig. 4. Typical change of electrical resistance of the fouling with time
using 10 wt.% skim milk, velocity 0.05 m s1 , Tbulk 62 C: (a)
general overview, (b) logarithmic view to highlight the initial period. times during fouling build-ups at various surface tem-
peratures (88, 96, and 115 C) are shown in Figs. 79.
The photo in Fig. 7, taken 40 min after starting up
3.0E-03
the system shows the induction of the fouling process.
R F (m2.kW-1)

2.5E-03
At this stage, the surface was still reasonably clear and

2.0E-03

1.5E-03
Thermal resistance

1.0E-03

88C
5.0E-04 96C
115C

0.0E+00
02 04 06 08 0 100 120 140 160 180 200 220

Fouling time (min)

Fig. 5. Typical change of thermal resistance of the fouling with time

using 10 wt.% skim milk, velocity 0.05 m s1 , Tbulk 62 C: (a)
general overview, (b) logarithmic view to highlight the initial period.

relatively high and after a certain time it decreased

Fig. 7. Photograph of fouling formed at the surface temperature 88 C.
slightly. These general trends are also reected in terms Arrows denote the times at which photographs were taken.
of the thermal resistance due to fouling (see Fig. 5). It
can be seen that the electrical resistance has a much
more obvious dependence on temperature than that of
the thermal resistance over the range tested.
The relationship between the electrical resistance (RE )
and thermal resistance (RF ) during the fouling process
for three dierent temperatures, which is illustrated in
Fig. 6, can be represented by the following equation:

RF aRE bR2E 1

where a and b are constants.

3.2. Visualization of the fouling process

The visualization of deposit growth during the foul-

ing build-up has been studied using images of the foul- Fig. 8. Photograph of fouling formed at the surface temperature 96 C.
ing obtained during testing. Photos taken at dierent Arrows denote the times at which photographs were taken.
186 X.D. Chen et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 61 (2004) 181189

Fig. 9. Photographs of fouling formed at the surface temperature 115

C. Arrows denote the times at which photographs were taken.

free of large deposits. The photo in Fig. 7, taken after

180 min shows a dramatic change in the deposit growth
accompanying with an accompanying increase in the
electrical resistance. At this stage, the fouling still oc-
curred as isolated patches on the surface. This obser-
vation suggests that a fouling layer would have to be
developed from these isolated islands which merge into
one another as they grow not only vertically but also
horizontally along the steel surface.
The photo in Fig. 7 taken at 320 min shows that the
steel surface was almost completely covered by the fo-
ulant. After this stage, a signicant increase in the
thickness of the fouling layer can be seen. The layer
looked very porous with large voids due to the low
velocity regime employed.
The fouling trends observed at 98 and 115 C (see
Figs. 8 and 9) were quite similar to those observed at 88
C (see Fig. 7). The fouling layers generated at 88 and 96
C adhered only weakly to the metal surface and could
be easily removed. However, at the surface temperature
of 115 C, the fouling layers became more compact and
adhered strongly on the surface of stainless steel. The
colour of the fouling deposits became darker as the
surface temperature was increased. The fouling layers
Fig. 10. Fouling distribution observed through the view windows of
the opposite plate across the test section at the surface temperature 115
C with a milk concentration of 10 wt.%, Tbulk 62 C, velocity 0.05
m s1 .
3.3. The cleaning experiments
A typical relationship between the electrical resis-
tance and cleaning time (i.e. cleaning curve) for the fo-
ulant (about 1-mm thick) generated at the surface
temperature of 96 C is illustrated in Fig. 11. After a fast
drop in the electrical resistance at the start of the
cleaning process, a relatively slow decrease in the elec-
trical resistance was observed until a persistent residual
amount of milk fouling left at the end of the cleaning
process. The initial dramatic drop in the electrical re-
4

from the higher temperature case had even more brown 3.5
under-layers, which were probably caused by extensive Electrical resistance
Electrical resistance RE ()

3 decreases due to NaOH

Maillard reactions. penetration

It was observed that the thickness of the fouling layer 2.5

Actual cleaning
was not uniform along the stainless steel surface. The 2 starts
fouling in the vicinity of the inlet of the steel surface
1.5
plate (lower) test section was thinner than that of the Penetration time
outlet of the test cell (see Fig. 10). Typically, the fouling 1

thickness at the inlet and outlet was about 0.8 and 1.2 0.5
mm, respectively after 100 min, and about 1.5 and 2.5 0
mm, respectively after 200 min. The formation of non- 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0
80 90 100 110 120
uniform fouling layers is due to the fact that the tem- Time (second)

perature of the milk close to the outlet is higher than Fig. 11. The change in electrical resistance with time, skim milk fouling
that close to the inlet as a result of the heating by the test layer occurring at Ts 96 C, d 1 mm, cleaning solution 0.5 wt.%
plate. NaOH, velocity 0.133 m s1 , Tsolution 45 C, DT 10 C.
 X.D. Chen et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 61 (2004) 181189 187

4 0.0045
Cleaning effect

)
0.004

-1
3.5

Thermal resistance RF (m2.kW

Fouling Cleaning
Electrical resistance RE ()

0.0035
3
Electrical 0.003
resistance NaOH penetration
2.5
decreases
due to NaOH 0.0025
2 penetration
0.002
1.5
0.0015
1
0.001

0.5 0.0005

0 0
05 0 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Time (min) Electrical resistance R
E
()

Fig. 12. The change in electrical resistance with time, fouling layer Fig. 14. Cleaning process, the relationship between electrical resistance
occurring at Ts 96 C, d 1 mm, cleaning solution 0.5 wt.% NaOH, and thermal resistance, fouling layer occurring at Ts 96 C, d 1
velocity 0.133 m s1 , Tsolution 45 C, DT 10 C. mm, cleaning solution 0.5 wt.% NaOH, velocity 0.133 m s1 ,
Tsolution 45 C, DT 10 C.

sistance was observed once the system was lled with the
cleaning solution, suggesting that this is due to the in- resistance was observed even though the removal of the
troduction of electrolytes. deposit has not started. This is indicated by a large re-
Fig. 12 shows the trend that combines both the duction in the electrical resistance (RE ) while almost no
fouling and cleaning process. The rst six data points of change in the thermal resistance was recorded (see Fig.
the cleaning process in Fig. 12 correspond to the pene- 14). This shows that the NaOH penetration into the
tration of NaOH during the rst six seconds. When the deposit was very fast and it can not be the limiting step
cell was initially lled with NaOH, there was an ap- for the cleaning process.
parently abrupt drop in the electric resistance (from The electrical resistance as a function of time for the
3.53 to 1.32 X). This drop was expected, because the foulant (about 2-mm thick) generated at a surface
NaOH solution is a strong conductive medium. If the temperature of 115 C during the cleaning process is
cleaning solution penetrates into the foulant, it would shown in Fig. 15. The electrical resistance decreased
substantially reduce the electrical resistance value. from 7.43 to 5.86 X during the rst 7 s of the cleaning
The thermal resistance as a function of time during process. Fig. 16 shows both the fouling build-up and the
the fouling build-up and the cleaning process is shown in cleaning process in terms of thermal resistance. Similar
Fig. 13. As can be seen from Fig. 13, a sharp drop in the trends were observed as those in Figs. 12 and 13. The
thermal resistance was not observed during the cleaning drop in the electrical resistance for the 2-mm thick fo-
stage. The relationship between the electrical resistance ulant (see Fig. 15) layer was not very abrupt compared
and the thermal resistance for the cleaning process is to that for 1-mm thick foulant (see Fig. 12). This is re-
illustrated in Fig. 14. The abrupt drop in the electrical ected graphically in Fig. 17. The reduction in the
electrical resistance at a constant thermal resistance for

0.004
8
0.0035 Fouling Cleaning
Thermal resistance RF (m 2W-1)

7 Electrical
0.003 reduction due to
Electrical resistance RE ()

6 NaOH penetration
0.0025
5 Actual cleaning
starts
0.002
4
0.0015
3

0.001
2

0.0005 Penetration time

1

0 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130
Time (min) Time (second)

Fig. 13. The change in thermal resistance with time, skim milk fouling Fig. 15. The change in electrical resistance with time, fouling layer
layer occurring at Ts 96 C, d 1 mm, cleaning solution 0.5 wt.% occurring at Ts 115 C, d 2 mm, cleaning solution 0.5 wt.%
NaOH, velocity 0.133 m s1 , Tsolution 45 C, DT 10 C. NaOH, velocity 0.133 m s1 , Tsolution 45 C, DT 10 C.
188 X.D. Chen et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 61 (2004) 181189

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0.0035

Cleaning
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thinner more porous layer generated at 96 C.
4. Conclusions
A novel soft deposit gauging technique employing
electrical resistance measurement has been developed
and tested in laboratory. This technique is a simple and
can be used in situ. The relationship between the elec-
trical resistance and the thermal resistance during the
fouling build-up and cleaning process has been estab-
lished. The study provides good evidence that the eects
of fouling can be detected via the measurement of the
electrical resistance. This technique has the potential to
measure the thickness of deposits on a surface in situ
and in real time of a dairy plant operation.
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