Historical Background of Processing of Foods and Biomass Feedstock’s by Electricity and Pulsed Electric Energy

Effects of electricity on biological objects attracted a great attention of researches over several centuries. Many interesting, intriguing, and unclear phenomena were discovered under application of electricity. The early works on the effects of electricity on germination, vegetation, plants growth, medical applications, and killing of bacteria were published starting from the eighteenth to the beginning of twentieth century. This chapter overviews the history of electricity including applications of direct current (DC), alternative current (AC) and pulsed electric energy (PEE) in the agriculture, medicine, food and related industries. Later studies on the food applications of electricity for pasteurization of milk, inactivation effects of PEE, ohmic heating of foods, electrical breakdown of cell membranes and electroporation concept are also presented (up to the middle of the 1990th).