Submission Number: 141
Submission ID: 257
Submission UUID: 78dcfb06-0ba8-41b3-8390-843cc96bddb1
Submission URI: /form/project

Created: Wed, 03/02/2022 - 13:14
Completed: Wed, 03/02/2022 - 13:14
Changed: Tue, 04/18/2023 - 13:26

Remote IP address: 128.6.36.20
Submitted by: Galen Collier
Language: English

Is draft: No
Webform: Project
Project Title Predictive Simulation of Pulsed Electric Field Exposure Effects on Vegetable Tissues and Bacterial Suspensions
Program CAREERS
Project Image COMSOL_Spinach_EF Distribution.png
Tags
Status Complete
Project Leader Gary Thompson
Email thompsong@rowan.edu
Mobile Phone
Work Phone
Mentor(s) Udi Zelzion
Student-facilitator(s) Danielle Green
Mentee(s)
Project Description As part of a team working on a USDA/NIFA funded project entitled, “Nonthermal Decontamination of Leafy Vegetable Food Products Using Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Field Exposures,” the Research Computing Facilitator (RCF) will help enable specific analytical work by performing COMSOL Multiphysics simulations of local electric field distributions, current densities, and Joule heating within leafy green vegetable tissue and bacterial suspensions between electrodes in order to predict threshold electric pulse exposures for thermal tissue damage. Matlab or Python scripts will be written for further analysis of the simulation data. Three-dimensional models of electrodes, custom exposure chambers, and tissues or cell suspensions will be constructed using a CAD software such as Solidworks and then imported into COMSOL. The RCF will take the lead on migrating this work to an HPC platform for production modeling. Computationally-intensive simulations will be run on the Rowan University Computing Cluster (RUCC).

The RCF student working on this project will interface with faculty, staff and other students to:
• Construct models that accurately simulate designed experimental conditions,
• Access, use, and retrieve data from RUCC,
• Create and test code to analyze data over the tested parametric spaces,
• Document the construction of simulations and written code, so that others can follow,
• Manage and organize all data within approved digital storage, and share all data with the faculty leader in appropriate file formats, and
• Assist in the interpretation, write-up, and publication of results.

In addition to potential academic publication(s) and conference presentation(s), milestone deliverables from this project will be shared publicly via posting to the project leader’s website.
Project Deliverables
Project Deliverables
Student Research Computing Facilitator Profile
Mentee Research Computing Profile
Student Facilitator Programming Skill Level Practical applications
Mentee Programming Skill Level
Project Institution Rowan University
Project Address 201 Mullica Hill Rd
Glassboro, New Jersey. 08028
Anchor Institution CR-Rutgers
Preferred Start Date 03/07/2022
Start as soon as possible. Yes
Project Urgency Already behind3Start date is flexible
Expected Project Duration (in months) 6 months
Launch Presentation
Launch Presentation Date 03/09/2022
Wrap Presentation
Wrap Presentation Date
Project Milestones
Github Contributions
Planned Portal Contributions (if any)
Planned Publications (if any)
What will the student learn?
What will the mentee learn?
What will the Cyberteam program learn from this project?
HPC resources needed to complete this project?
Notes
What is the impact on the development of the principal discipline(s) of the project? The project resulted in prediction of thermal deposition associated with Joule heating during pulsed electric field exposures of spinach leaf tissue. Agriculture and food safety benefits from the threshold treatment parameter values calculated, giving boundaries to pulsed electric field exposures applied for extraction, drying, decontamination, or electrotransfection of leafy green plant tissues
What is the impact on other disciplines? The results of this project also provide useful data points to the disciplines of bioelectricity and botany.
Is there an impact physical resources that form infrastructure? N/A
Is there an impact on the development of human resources for research computing? Yes, one student developed skills for research computing.
Is there an impact on institutional resources that form infrastructure? N/A
Is there an impact on information resources that form infrastructure? N/A
Is there an impact on technology transfer? N/A
Is there an impact on society beyond science and technology? Yes, possible indirect benefits to society include food products that require less energy to process and are safer to consume.
Lessons Learned The student learned about electrophysical properties of biological materials, how to construct finite element models of composite materials, and more advanced COMSOL modeling techniques. The student also realized and informed Rowan University of necessary licenses and updates needed to operate COMSOL on Rowan University’s Computing Cluster (RUCC).
Overall results Simulation results indicate negligible temperature rise within leaf tissue during pulsed electric field exposures with parameters being used for decontamination treatments. These results have been used as supporting information for a manuscript entitled, “Threshold Microsecond Pulsed Electric Field Exposures for Change in Spinach Quality,” currently undergoing peer review.