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RESUMEN:
ABSTRACT:
Lyophilization is a highly specialized segment of the industry. It is used intensively in pharmacy, in dehydrated
foods, in production of catalysts and in new materials. It is said that in America this process was used by the
Incas, who in the high peaks of the Andes, had a natural lyophilization plant, because there the atmospheric
pressure is low and the cold at night freezing their food that, exposed to Soft heat the next day, they lost moisture
by sublimation. They thus obtained food of long durability. The pharmaceutical industry first used the process of
lyophilization in 1909, Schackell carried out the preservation of biological substances by this method.
Lyophilization of blood plasma was successfully prepared in 1933 by Farl W. Flosdorf, and was in commercial
production in 1940. Research for the freeze-drying of food began before World War II; However, this technique
was only applied to commercial products in the early 1960s. The lyophilization technology in edible products is
mainly used in freeze-dried soluble coffee; There are plants for other products like dehydrated soups,
mushrooms, meat, poultry, fish, fruits and vegetables. Lyophilization is drying under particular conditions,
which begins with freezing at low temperature followed by vacuum evaporation by removing by sublimation
almost the entire water content. The product obtained by lyophilization is a powder or a hard, porous, highly
hygroscopic substance that needs to be kept in hermetically sealed containers. When the amount of evaporated
water is restored, the product reproduces very closely its appearance and original properties.