Institute of High Pressure Physics

Laboratory of Pressurized Foods and Soft Matter IHPP PAS is involved in R&D on high pressure preservation of foods since 1993, i.e. the world onset of industrial applications of this technology. Soft Matter denotes systems extremely sensitive to external physical agents, including high pressures. Foods are the model example of very complex soft matter [1, 2]. The Laboratory links the microbiological insight with physics and chemistry of soft matter and the technology. It belongs to Europe leading groups regarding fundamental studies in this area  [see. p. 3, 4, 5: more than 50 research papers]. The Laboratory is also associated with the sequence of  R&D successes from super-foods to super-cosmetics and pharmaceutics HPP. Technologies HPP Unipress means totally no chemical preservatives, no destructive thermal pasteurization linked with extreme bioactivity and microbiological safety. Probably the most important success is the initiative of the application of innovative high pressure HPP Unipress technology for the preservation of human milk. This issue is successfully developed in the coop with the Human Milk Foundation and the Warsaw Medical University. The “power’ of the Laboratory is associated with the synergy of  microbiological, biophysics and   technological sub-Labs supported by high pressure processor with chamber volume V = 100 mL, V = 1 L, V = 2 L, V = 5 L and V = 50 L, for max pressures ranging from 600 MPa to even 2.2 GPa (!). The HPP processor ‘V=50 L” means the second in Europe and Poland-only pilot line facilitating the technology scaling up to the industrial level and even ‘market experiments’. The Laboratory means also the experienced staff and the unique HPP data bank. It is the Europe-only Lab with the broad range methods for in situ under pressure studies, so important for innovative biotechnological solutions. The lab succeeded in studies on the simultaneous action in situ of two ‘strong’ physical factors, as high pressure and the strong electric field (PEF) or the high energy ultrasound. 

Contact:
Prof. zw. dr hab. Sylwester J. Rzoska
e-mail: sylwester.rzoska@gmail.com
e-mail: sylwester.rzoska@unipress.waw.pl
tel. + 48 660 438 596

Presentation

1. P. G. De Gennes, What is Soft Matter (Nobel Prize 1991 lecture) (Wiley, NY, 2005).
2. R. Mezzenga,  et al. Understanding Foods as Soft Matter, Nature Materials 4, 729 (2005).
3. S. J. Rzoska, A. Drozd-Rzoska, M. Fonberg-Broczek, B. Sokołowska, et al. Dielectric spectroscopy of  pressurized Saccharomyces cerevisiae,  Food Biophysics 362, 1 (2014).
4. S. J. Rzoska, et al., Simultaneous impact of high pressures and pulsed electric field on  Saccharomyces Cerevisiae model system, J. Food Process. Technol. 6, 1000518 (2015).
5. I. Porębska, B. Sokołowska, S. Skąpska and S. J. Rzoska, Treatment with hydrostatic pressure and supercritical carbon dioxide to control Alicyllobacillus  acidoterrestris spores in apple juice, Food Control 73,  24 (2017).