Analysis of impedance sensor probes for electric field treatment during post-harvest processing

During post-harvest processing of agricultural products, they are treated with uniform electric fields for drying or preservation. Such systems may contain additional sensor probes to measure capacitance or impedance, which might interfere with the existing uniform electric field. In this work, three different arrangements of sensor probes -plate probe, sphere probe and Interdigitated Electrodes -are analysed using COMSOL Multiphysics software. Interference to the existing field caused by different probe arrangements is compared with each other. It is found that Interdigitated Electrodes causes minimal disturbance to surrounding fields compared to other two arrangements and hence is a better choice as sensor probe in electric field treatment systems for agricultural products.