How The Food Industry Uses Cavitation, The Ocean's Most Powerful Punch
Cavitation produces a bubble that rapidly collapses and becomes hotter than the sun's surface. The mantis shrimp uses it, and now so do food and drink firms, to improve flavors — from yogurt to beer.
Throughout history, being on the receiving end of anything involving cavitation, a miniscule underwater implosion, has been bad news. Millions of years before humans discovered cavitation — and promptly began avoiding it, given its tendency to chew up machinery — the phenomenon has provided the shockwave and awe behind a punch so ridiculously violent that it's made the mantis shrimp a honey badger-esque Internet mascot.
Now, a slew of companies are co-opting the phenomenon behind the ocean's most powerful punch to process food and beverages from yogurt to beer.
Cavitation is when low pressure in a liquid produces a bubble that rapidly collapses, and heats up to 20,000 Kelvin — than the sun's surface.
