Patent ID: 7691324

Claim:
A method for the continuous non-thermal decomposition and pasteurization of industrial quantities of organic process material by electroporation, wherein the process material is carried through a reactor in, and with, a transport/processing liquid and is subjected therein to the effects of pulsed electric fields generated between grounded electrodes which are arranged spaced from one another flat along the walls of the reactor on one side of a longitudinal passage of the reactor and high voltage electrodes which can be energized by a high voltage and are arranged in spaced relationship flat along the walls of the reactor and an opposite side of the longitudinal flow passage of the reactor opposite the spaces between the grounded electrodes, said method comprising the steps of: generating pulse-like electric fields only between the high voltage electrodes and the grounded electrodes by discharging an electric energy source connected to the respective high voltage electrodes by way of an associated switch without time-overlap with the other electrodes so that no electroporation field lines formed thereby and extending between any high voltage electrode and the grounded electrodes extend normal to the flow direction of the process material flowing through the longitudinal flow passage, charging the electric energy sources between two immediately successive discharges to such a level that, in the area between any high voltage electrode and the nearest grounded electrode, an electric field strength E is generated during the discharge whereby along the longitudinal axes (z) of any cell of the process material which is momentarily present in the electroporation field for the duration of at most 1 μs, a potential difference Δφ s =10 V is exceeded for the irreversible fracture and opening of the cell walls of the process material.