Abstract
Recently significant progress has been made in research into applications of the high-pressure treatment method. This is because it has been demonstrated that high-pressure treatment can induce additional new phenomena when used in combination with other physical, chemical or biological treatments. Practical results can be obtained when two or more phenomena induced by high-pressure treatment are combined, for example, acceleration of enzyme reactions, acceleration of reactions by the breakdown of cell walls, penetration of water into the inside of rice grains, elimination of air bubbles in a wide range of grains, and sterilization obtainable by the synergic action of high-pressure and pulsed electric field application. These extended techniques are expected to form the main stream in the research of practical applications in the future. Therefore, the idea has emerged to call such application techniques “Hi-Pit” (High-Pressure Induced Transformation).
