Thermoplastic food extrusion, questions, and answers – A simplified approach (Atena Editora)

Abstract

During my professional activity, as a researcher in the food extrusion field, I have served numerous external customers during more than 30 years of activity in this area. Precisely to answer, with the main answers, the main doubts of most of these customers, the idea of publishing this small treaty was born, with the intention of clarifying as far as possible, in a simplified way, for your better understanding. Most of these entrepreneurs have heard about the extrusion process, and they want to produce some type of product, however, when consulting the manufacturer, they find that there is a very large diversity of equipment available on the market, many of them with high budgets. The question then arises of defining which one would be the most appropriate, or even whether it would be feasible to produce a particular product. On the other hand, a certain agro-industrial producer realizes that he has large volumes of by-products resulting from a particular manufacturer and that he believes it would be interesting to add value through extrusion. Of course, different by-products can be used, however, not all material is able to pass through the extrusion system, or not everything that is available would be viable. The characteristics of the raw materials to be processed can also direct the type of equipment that must be considered, that is, an extruder can be very useful for a certain product and without great effect for other types of materials. This is related to the configuration of the extrusion system. In this sense, the objective of this book is to try to answer, as far as possible, in a simple way, to the entrepreneur, or to those interested in the technique, the main doubts related to extrusion technology. It is hoped that, with this reading, the reader has understood the different nuances presented, and the ways to differentiate the equipment, parameters, and products, since extrusion technology is one of the most versatile in the industrial production of food for both human and animal consumption.