Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the processes and technologies in drying of vegetables and vegetable products. It discusses various technologies such as hot airflow drying, freeze drying, spray drying, solar drying, microwave drying, radio frequency drying, infrared radiation drying, ultrasound assisted drying, and smart drying. It covers drying of different parts and types of of vegetables such as mushrooms and herbs, properties of pigments, nutrients, texture, etc. during drying process and dried products storage, nondestructive measurement and monitoring of moisture and morphological changes during vegetable drying, novel packaging, and computational fluid dynamics.

Prof. Min Zhang is the key professor and PhD supervisor in School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University. He also works as Director of the R & D Center of Food Resource and Utilization Technology in Jiangnan University. His research areas focus on the Mechanism, Technology and Engineering of Processing and Storage of Fresh Foods. From 1998, Prof. Zhang was approved as the master supervisor and has supervised 105 masters (83 graduated). From 2000, he was approved as the PhD supervisor and has supervised 42 PhDs( 30 graduated). From 2004, he began to supervise the postdoctoral researchers and has supervised 6 postdocs. In 2003 and 2005, he was listed in the WHO’s WHO (science and engineering edition). In 2004, he was listed as the 1st Batch of the National Personnel Training Project of “New Century Bai-Qian-Wan Project”. In 2006, he was listed as the National Expert who enjoys special government allowances. From 2005, he was invited as the Scientific Adviser in Food Science Area by International Foundation for Science (IFS).From 2007, he was early or late listed as the editorial members of three SCI journals (Journal of Food Engineering, IF2.576; Drying Technology, IF1.77; International Agrophysics, IF 1.142) and several domestic journals such as Journal of Food Science and Biotechnology, Journal of Food Safety & Quality, Drying Technology & Equipment. From August 2013, he was appointed as Honorary Professor in Food Science Field in the University of Queensland, Australia.

In recent years, Prof. Zhang actively promotes the industrialization of new quality control technology in fresh food processing and preservation, and established a long-time collaboration mechanism of Industry-Academia-Research (joint research institute) with more than 10 large and medium-sized domestic and foreign food or equipment companies like Haitong Food group Co., PepsiCo Food Co., Jiahao Food Co., which create obvious economic benefit for the enterprise.

Prof. Zhang has published 26 monographs or translation books in national presses and 10 English book chapters, edited one international conference proceedings (English edition),and co-edited one English academic book. He published more than 240 SCI international journal papers as corresponding author. As main inventor, the 116 applied invention patents from his group have already been authorized by the Chinese National Intellectual Property Bureau. He also applied 11 International Patents including applied patents from Germany, Japan, France, South Korea and Switzerland. He was granted as the 5th Top Ten Outstanding Patent Inventor in Jiangsu Province(China) in 2012.The projects performed by Prof. Zhang were granted more than ten awards