Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Dielectric Properties of Agricultural Materials and their Applications
    Dielectric Properties of Agricultural Materials and their Applications
    Dielectric Properties of Agricultural Materials and their Applications
    Ebook605 pages5 hours

    Dielectric Properties of Agricultural Materials and their Applications

    By Stuart Nelson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Dielectric Properties of Agricultural Materials and Their Applications provides an understanding of the fundamental principles governing dielectric properties of materials, describes methods for measuring such properties, and discusses many applications explored for solving industry problems. The information in this reference stimulates new research for solving problems associated with production, handling, and processing of agricultural and food products. Anyone seeking a better understanding of dielectric properties of materials and application of radio-frequency and microwave electromagnetic energy for solution of problems in agriculture and related fields will find this an essential resource.

    • Presents applications of dielectric properties for sensing moisture in grain and seed and the use of such properties in radio-frequency and microwave dielectric heating of agricultural materials
    • Offers information for finding correlations between dielectric properties and quality attributes such as sweetness in melons, or other desired characteristics of agricultural products
    • Identifies conditions for selective dielectric heating of materials such as insects in grain or biological organisms in soils
    • Provides a solid understanding of dielectric properties and the variables that influence these properties
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAcademic Press
    Release dateApr 13, 2015
    ISBN9780128025451
    Dielectric Properties of Agricultural Materials and their Applications

    Related to Dielectric Properties of Agricultural Materials and their Applications

    Related ebooks

    Physics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Antennas

      Dec 1, 2020

      Antennas
      4 min read

    • Article

      Root Cause

      Aug 11, 2021

      Root Cause
      2 min read

    • Article

      Why Data Matters For Tracking Biodiversity Changes

      Oct 3, 2018

      New research highlights the importance of trait variability within species in measuring biodiversity changes and how ecologists can incorporate that data into their assessments. Around the world, ecologists are studying how species are responding to

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Hidden Power Laws of Ecosystems: As nature scales, complexity gives way to universal law.

      Oct 29, 2015

      Here’s how to cause a ruckus: Ask a bunch of naturalists to simplify the world. We usually think in terms of a web of complicated interactions among animals, plants, microbes, earth, wind, and fire—what Darwin called “the entangled bank.” Reducing th

      6 min read

    • Article

      To Survive Cold, Some Plants Kill Part of Their Roots

      Jul 6, 2017

      Some plants may selectively kill part of their roots in order to survive cold weather conditions, researchers have found. This approach allows the plants to withstand chilling stress and to recover faster when the weather turns better. The discovery

      2 min read

    • Article

      Scientists Hunt for New Drugs in Plant ‘Ammo’

      Apr 17, 2017

      A new method for identifying the gene networks plants use to create anti-predator chemicals could lead to more effective drugs, a new study suggests. Plants create hundreds of thousands of small molecules (also called specialized or secondary metabol

      2 min read

    • Article

      Grounds For Testing

      May 1, 2022

      Grounds For Testing
      5 min read

    • Article

      Fourteen Patterns

      Sep 2, 2020

      Terrapin Bright Green’s ‘14 Patterns of Biophilic Design, Improving Health and Well-Being in the Built Environment’ white paper gives a comprehensive breakdown of biophilic design principles, broken into the three tenets of Nature in the Space, Natur

      1 min read

    • Article

      ‘Assembly Line’ Measures Worm Cells With a Poke

      Apr 24, 2017

      Microscopic probes have simplified the process of measuring electrical activity in individual cells of small living animals. The technique allows a single animal like a worm to be tested again and again and could revolutionize data-gathering for dise

      3 min read

    • Article

      Clay Specks Turn Stem Cells Into Bone And Cartilage

      Apr 16, 2018

      A new class of clay nanoparticles can direct stem cells to become bone or cartilage cells, report researchers. Human stem cells have shown potential in medicine as they can transform into various specialized cell types such as bone and cartilage cell

      2 min read

    • Article

      Always in “Hot Water”

      Nov 21, 2017

      Always in “Hot Water”
      3 min read

    • Article

      ‘Encyclopedia’ Sheds Light On How Death Boosts Ecosystems

      Sep 12, 2018

      Researchers have developed a new way to understand how decomposing plants and animals contribute to ecosystems. Eric Benbow, a forensic entomologist and microbial ecologist at Michigan State University who led the new research, first defined the necr

      2 min read

    • Article

      Bundles Of Energy

      Jun 4, 2023

      Bundles Of Energy
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Dielectric Properties of Agricultural Materials and their Applications

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Dielectric Properties of Agricultural Materials and their Applications - Stuart Nelson

      acknowledged.

      Chapter 1

      Theory and Fundamental Principles

      Dielectrics and dielectric properties of materials are defined, and the fundamental relationships of dielectric properties with electromagnetic energy are discussed. The dielectric constant and the dielectric loss factor are components of the complex relative permittivity, which is also explained. The dielectric constant is associated with the ability of a material to store energy in the electric field in the material, and the loss factor is associated with the ability of the material to absorb or dissipate energy, that is, to convert electric energy into heat energy. The variation in the dielectric properties of materials—with respect to the frequency of the fields to which they are subjected, the temperature of the materials, and the density of the materials—is discussed. Because water is an important component of agricultural materials, the dielectric behavior of water is included in the discussion.

      Keywords

      Density; dielectric constant; dielectric loss factor; dielectric properties; electromagnetic energy; frequency; permittivity; temperature

      The dielectric properties of materials are those electrical characteristics that determine the interaction of materials with electric fields. In radio-frequency (RF) and microwave heating of foods, agricultural products, and other dielectric materials, it is the interaction of the materials with the electric field component of the electromagnetic waves that produces the desired heating effects (Nelson and Trabelsi, 2014). Strictly speaking, radio frequencies range from about 10 kHz to about 100 GHz. These are the frequencies practicable for radio transmission; they span that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between the audio frequencies and the infrared region (IEEE, 1990). Thus, the RF range includes those frequencies used for microwave heating. However, because RF dielectric heating applications were developed first in the frequency range of about 3–40 MHz, and microwave heating applications came later, there is a tendency—particularly in the food industry—to refer to the lower frequency applications as RF dielectric heating, and to refer to dielectric heating at microwave frequencies, about 1 GHz and higher, as microwave heating. Frequencies for RF communication are further designated as high frequency (HF, 3–30 MHz), very-high frequency (VHF, 30–300 MHz), ultra-high frequency (UHF, 300–3000 MHz), super-high frequency (SHF, 3–30 GHz), and extremely-high frequency (EHF, 30–300 GHz).

      1.1 Dielectric Properties of Materials

      Dielectrics are a class of materials that are poor conductors of electricity, in contrast to materials such as metals that are generally good electrical conductors. Many materials, including foods, living organisms, and most agricultural products, conduct electric currents to some degree, but they are still classified as dielectrics. The electrical nature of these materials can be described by their dielectric properties, which influence the distribution of electromagnetic fields and currents in the region occupied by the materials, and which determine the behavior of the materials in electric fields. Thus, the dielectric properties determine how rapidly a material will warm up in RF or microwave dielectric heating applications. Their influence on electric fields also provides a means for sensing certain other properties of materials, which may be correlated with the dielectric properties, by nondestructive electrical measurements. Therefore, dielectric properties of agricultural products may be important for quality-sensing applications in the agricultural industry as well as in dielectric heating applications.

      . of electromagnetic energy in a material depends on the electromagnetic characteristics of that material and is given as:

      (1.1)

      is the electric permittivity. For free space, this becomes:

      (1.2)

      can be represented as a complex quantity,

      (1.3)

      . The complex permittivity relative to free space is then given as:

      (1.4)

      is associated with the ability of the material to absorb or dissipate energy, that is, to convert electric energy into heat energy. The dielectric loss factor, for example, is an index of the tendency of the material to warm up in a microwave oven. The dielectric constant is also important because of its influence on the distribution of electric fields. For example, the electric capacitance of two parallel conducting plates separated by free space or air will be multiplied by the value of the dielectric constant of a material if the space between the plates is filled with that material.

      is interpreted to include the energy losses in the dielectric due to all operating dielectric relaxation mechanisms and ionic conduction.

      1.2 Variation of Dielectric Properties

      The dielectric properties of most materials vary with several influencing factors (Nelson, 1981, 1991; Nelson and Datta, 2001). In hygroscopic materials such as agricultural products, the amount of water in the material is generally a dominant factor. The dielectric properties also depend on the frequency of the applied alternating electric field, on the temperature of the material, and on the density, composition, and structure of the material. In granular or particulate materials, the bulk density of the air–particle mixture is another factor that influences the dielectric properties. Of course, the dielectric properties of materials are dependent on their chemical composition and especially on the presence of mobile ions and the permanent dipole moments associated with water and any other molecules making up the material of interest.

      1.2.1 Frequency Dependence

      With the exception of some extremely low-loss materials, that is, materials that absorb essentially no energy from RF and microwave fields, the dielectric properties of most materials vary considerably with the frequency of the applied electric fields. This frequency dependence has been discussed previously (Nelson and Datta, 2001; Nelson, 1973, 1991). An important phenomenon contributing to the frequency dependence of the dielectric properties is the polarization, arising from the orientation with the imposed electric field, of molecules which have permanent dipole moments. The mathematical formulation developed by Debye to describe this process for pure polar materials (Debye, 1929) can be expressed

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1