Endre Joachim Lerheim Mossige’s research while affiliated with Norwegian University of Life Sciences and other places

The flavor and aroma development in fermented foods is intricately tied to the mixing dynamics during fermentation. This review explores how variations in mixing influence the physical, chemical, and microbial interactions within fermentation systems, ultimately affecting sensory characteristics such as flavor and aroma. Factors like rheology, shear forces, and fluid flow patterns are critical in mass transfer, microbial activity, and the release of volatile compounds, contributing to fermented products' sensory profile. Examples from common fermented foods -- including bread, yogurt, beer, wine, and cheese -- highlight how controlled mixing can optimize the release of desirable flavor compounds, improve biosynthesis yields, and reduce technological complexity. Understanding these physical interactions is essential for advancing fermentation processes in the food industry, leading to higher product quality, better flavor retention, and enhanced consumer satisfaction.

This paper investigates the self-cleansing performance of an airlift pump with a U-bend. For this purpose, an experimental setup is used to assess the effect of air flow on the pump's ability to lift water and remove particles under different submergence ratios and particle concentrations. In addition, a simple yet accurate fluid mechanical model is used to interpret the experiments with individual particles and to predict the critical water velocity required for particle removal from the pipe bend.

Innovations in fluid mechanics have been leading to better food since ancient history, while creativity in cooking has inspired fundamental breakthroughs in science. This review addresses how recent advances in hydrodynamics are changing food science and the culinary arts and, reciprocally, how the surprising phenomena that arise in the kitchen are leading to new discoveries across the disciplines, including molecular gastronomy, rheology, soft matter, biophysics, medicine, and nanotechnology. This review is structured like a menu, where each course highlights different aspects of culinary fluid mechanics. Our main themes include multiphase flows, complex fluids, thermal convection, hydrodynamic instabilities, viscous flows, granular matter, porous media, percolation, chaotic advection, interfacial phenomena, and turbulence. For every topic, an introduction and its connections to food are provided, followed by a discussion of how science could be made more accessible and inclusive. The state-of-the-art knowledge is then assessed, the open problems, along with the likely directions for future research and indeed future dishes. New ideas in science and gastronomy are growing rapidly side by side.

This paper investigates the self-cleansing performance of an airlift pump with a u-bend. For this purpose, an experimental test model is used to assess the effect of air supply on the pump's ability to lift water and remove particles under different submergence ratios and particle concentrations. In addition, a simple yet accurate fluid mechanical model is used to rationalize the experiments with individual particles, and to predict the critical water velocity required for removal from the pipe bend. Our experimental results show that the airlift pump is self-cleansing for particle concentrations corresponding to as much as 70% of the cross-sectional area in the u-bend. Furthermore, the self-cleansing ability is relatively independent of the submergence ratio and almost entirely determined by the shear stress. However, the submergence ratio strongly affects energy use, and we find that submergence ratios around 0.75 provide a good compromise between energy use and particle removal efficiency.

“A basic and basically unsolved problem in fluid dynamics is to determine the evolution of rising bubbles and falling drops of one miscible liquid in another” [D. D. Joseph and Y. Y. Renardy, Fundamentals of Two-Fluid Dynamics: Part II: Lubricated Transport, Drops and Miscible Liquids (Springer Science & Business Media, 2013), Vol. 4.]. Here, we address this important literature gap and present the first theory predicting the velocity, volume, and composition of such drops at low Reynolds numbers. For the case where the diffusion out of the drop is negligible, we obtain a universal scaling law. For the more general case where diffusion occurs into and out of the drop, the full dynamics is governed by a parameter-free first-order ordinary differential equation, whose closed form solution exists and only depends on the initial condition. Our analysis depends primarily on “drop-scale” effective parameters for the diffusivity through the interfacial boundary layer. We validate our results against experimental data for water drops suspended in a syrup, corresponding to certain regimes of the mass exchange ratio between water and syrup, and by this explicitly identify the drop-scale parameters of the theory.

The dissolution of a buoyant drop rising or falling through a viscous environment is a fundamental mixing problem; yet, it has enjoyed relatively little attention. In this work, we analyze the evolution of a freely suspended, miscible drop. For the case where the diffusion out of the drop is negligible, we obtain a universal scaling law. For the more general case where diffusion occurs into and out of the drop, the full dynamics is governed by a parameter-free first-order ordinary differential equation, whose closed-form solution exists, and only depends on the initial condition. Our analysis characterizes the drop size, velocity and composition, and depends primarily on drop-scale effective parameters for the diffusivity through the interfacial boundary layer. We validate our results against experimental data for water drops suspended in syrup, corresponding to certain regimes of the mass exchange ratio between water and syrup, and by this explicitly identify the drop-scale parameters of the theory.

Innovations in fluid mechanics have refined food since ancient history, while creativity in cooking inspires science in return. Here, we review how recent advances in hydrodynamics are changing food science, and we highlight how the surprising phenomena that arise in the kitchen lead to discoveries and technologies across the disciplines, including rheology, soft matter, biophysics and molecular gastronomy. This review is structured like a menu, where each course highlights different aspects of culinary fluid mechanics. Our main themes include multiphase flows, complex fluids, thermal convection, hydrodynamic instabilities, viscous flows, granular matter, porous media, percolation, chaotic advection, interfacial phenomena, and turbulence. For every topic, we first provide an introduction accessible to food professionals and scientists in neighbouring fields. We then assess the state-of-the-art knowledge, the open problems, and likely directions for future research. New gastronomic ideas grow rapidly as the scientific recipes keep improving too.

Hypothesis Although wetting agents have been developed to limit tear film dewetting over contact lenses, systematic analyses correlating wetting agents properties to mechanisms of the tear film destabilization are not readily available. Clarifying destabilization characteristics across key physio-chemical variables will provide a rational basis for identifying optimal wetting agents. Experiments We employ an in-house, in vitro platform to comprehensively evaluate drainage and dewetting dynamics of five wetting agents across seventeen different formulations and two model tear film solutions. We consider the film thickness evolution, film thickness at breakup, dewetted front propagation, and develop correlations to contact angle to compare the samples. Findings Zwitterionic wetting agents effectively stabilize the tear film by reducing the film thickness at the onset of dewetting, and delaying propagation of dewetted regions across the lens. Furthermore, tuning wetting agent surface concentrations and utilizing binary mixtures of wetting agents can enhance wetting characteristics. Finally, despite disparities in wetting agent molecular properties, the time to dewet 50% of the lens scales linearly with the product of the receding contact angle and contact angle hysteresis. Hence, we fundamentally establish the importance of minimizing the absolute contact angle and contact angle hysteresis for effective wetting performance.

Hypothesis: Although wetting agents have been developed to limit tear film dewetting over contact lenses, systematic analyses correlating wetting agents properties to mechanisms of the tear film destabilization are not readily available. Clarifying destabilization characteristics across key physio-chemical variables will provide a rational basis for identifying optimal wetting agents. Experiments: We employ an in-house, in vitro platform to comprehensively evaluate drainage and dewetting dynamics of five wetting agents across seventeen different formulations and two model tear film solutions: phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and artificial tear solution (ATS). We consider the film thickness evolution, film thickness at breakup, dewetted front propagation, and develop correlations to contact angle to compare the samples. Findings: Zwitterionic wetting agents effectively stabilize the tear film by reducing the film thickness at the onset of dewetting, and delaying dewetted region propagation across the lens. Furthermore, tuning wetting agent surface concentrations in binary mixtures can enhance wetting characteristics. Finally, despite disparities in wetting agent molecular properties, the time to dewet $50\%$ of the lens scales linearly with the product of the receding contact angle and contact angle hysteresis. Hence, we fundamentally establish the importance of minimizing both the absolute contact angle values and contact angle hysteresis for effective wetting performance.