INCREASING THE “POP” IN POPCORN

Mrinalini Basu, Steven Chen, Jeffrey Conti, Varun Ganesan, Giselle Hsu, Tracie Kong, Mark Massaro, Nikhil Yegya-Raman, Darvin Yi, Kaicen Zhu

Advisor: Dr. Paul Quinn
Assistant: AJ Pyle

ABSTRACT

Our goal in this project is to increase the size of popcorn flakes, which can make the snack more desirable for consumers, as well as more profitable for producers. We proceeded by modeling the popping process as an adiabatic expansion and lowering the pressure in the popping chamber to increase the flake size. To test this theory, we experimentally determined the effect of decreased pressure on popcorn size in three different apparatuses: a stove popper, a movie popper, and a microwave. Our results indicate that there will be an increase in flake volume and a decrease in waste when popcorn is popped under reduced pressure.