1,720,988 research outputs found
Reuse of Food Waste and Wastewater as a Source of Polyphenolic Compounds to Use as Food Additives
Full text linkThe problem of waste and byproducts generated from agro-industrial activities worldwide is an increasing concern in terms of environmental sustainability. In this ambit, the quantity of food wastes—produced in all steps of the whole food chain— is enormous, and it may be forecasted that food waste could amount to more than 120 billion tonnes by 2020. The reuse of food waste and wastewater as source of polyphenolic compounds could be an interesting discussion in this ambit. In fact, polyphenols obtained in this way might be used for food and non-food purposes by means of new, improved, and safe extraction methods. In light of the opportunity represented by the treatment of agro-industrial waste, different systems concerning the winemaking and olive oil production industries have also been discussed as describing approaches applicable to other sectors. More research is needed before considering recovery of phenolic compounds from wastewater as an economically convenient choice for the food sector
Water Reuse in the Food Industry: Quality of Original Wastewater Before Treatments
No full textThis chapter introduces one of the most important emergencies in the world of food and non-food industries: the availability of clean and drinking water. Water use has more than tripled globally since 1950: water quality and its scarcity are increasingly recognised as one of the most important environmental threats to humankind. In addition, the food and beverage processing industry requires copious amounts of water. For these reasons, direct and indirect water reuse systems are becoming more and more interesting and promising technologies. Different reuse guidelines have been recently issued as the result of risk assessment and management approaches linked to health-based targets. Chemical and biological features of wastewaters originated from different food processing environments have to be carefully analysed and adequate countermeasures have to be taken on these bases in relation to the specific food processing activity
Wastewater Treatments for the Food Industry: Physical-Chemical Systems
No full textThis chapter provides a general overview of physical-chemical wastewater remediation systems in the food industry. Water reuse systems are becoming more and more interesting and promising technologies, depending on merely quantitative estimations, physical and chemical features of pollutants and the variability of these characteristics, week after week. Different systems are available for the food industry, depending on the final destination or water effluents and peculiar chemical-physical and biological features of the fluids before treatment. Several of these remediation systems can be subdivided into different groups, depending on the desired amount of gross removed matters, or into four categories depending on the peculiar removal operation (physical, chemical, thermal or biological procedures). This chapter is dedicated to the description of physical-chemical wastewater remediation systems only. Biological procedures are not considered here, while physical-chemical techniques are discussed with the possibility of 'hybrid' solutions including biological treatments, if applicable
Quality Standards for Recycled Water: Opuntia ficus-indica as Sorbent Material
No full textIn recent years, increased industrial and agricultural activities and the correlated population growth led to overexploitation of natural resources and the increased generation of various types of pollutants. For these reasons, the hazardous pollution of wastewater is one of the most important environmental problems worldwide. A wide range of wastewater treatment technologies are available; however, some disadvantages are often reported. Hence, there is a constant need to search for an efficient, low-cost and alternative wastewater treatment. Recently, several biosolids have been considered for pollutant removal from wastewaters, including Opuntia ficus-indica. This chapter focuses on wastewater treatment strategies involving material parts in sewage containing high levels of chemical oxygen demand and turbidity, heavy metals and pesticides
Wastewater Treatments for the Food Industry: Biological Systems
No full textThis chapter provides a general overview of biological wastewater remediation systems in the food industry. Water reuse systems are becoming more and more interesting and promising technologies, depending on merely quantitative estimations, physical and chemical features of pollutants and the variability of these characteristics, week after week. Different systems are available for the food industry. Several of these remediation systems may be subdivided into four categories depending on the peculiar removal operation, including biological systems. Biological techniques aim to reduce organic loads and the remaining suspended materials in wastewaters from primary processes (after a preliminary removal of oils and solids) by means of aerobic, anaerobic or hybrid solutions. Soluble and non-soluble pollutants and nutrients based on nitrogen and/or phosphorus are biologically degraded and converted in different and less hazardous compounds
The distribution of Rare Earth Elements discriminates the growth substrate of Vitis vinifera L.
No full textSustainable agricultural, food-related strategies and geographic traceability require understanding of the plant physiological response to stress potentially generated by contaminated soils. Here, we have investigated the effect of contaminated substrate on growth of Vitis vinifera L. plants analysing the distribution of full Rare Earth Elements (REE) spectra in different parts of the plant. Experiments were carried out using pristine plants growing in a handmade substrate (blank experiment) and in REE artificially-enriched soil (spiked experiment). Our results show that both plant mass and REE amount in leaves are not influenced by the substrate enrichment while roots are by one-order of magnitude enriched for three-orders of magnitude enhancement of the soil substrate. This clearly indicates that soil contamination does not significantly influence the REE amount in the aerial parts. However, the spectra of REE normalized changes when the soil is enriched. We found that Light-REE (from La to Gd) are by more than one order of magnitude enriched compared to Heavy-REE (from Tb to Lu plus Y) in spiked experiment showing the specific response of Vitis vinifera L. to the stress generated by soil contamination. We propose that REE distribution spectra is a marker of Vitis vinifera L. substrate of growth and providing a new tool for tracing the geographical origin of agri-food products
Chemical Evolution of Nitrogen-based Compounds in Mozzarella Cheeses
No full textThis Brief evaluates the consequences of protein modifications in cheeses, with special emphasis on mozzarella cheeses. It explains the influence of biogenic amines on food quality and safety. As certain biogenic amines display a toxic potential to humans, considerable research has been undertaken in recent years to evaluate their presence in fermented foods, such as cheeses. This Brief summarizes how the presence of amines is influenced by different factors such as cheese variety, seasoning and microflora. The authors compare typical profiles of different products, e.g. ripe vs. unripe cheeses, focusing also on the different types of mozzarella cheeses. The Brief also introduces several analytical methods and simulation techniques, which are being used to evaluate the evolutive profiles of different selected molecules, protein aggregation, or proteolysi
Accumulation of rare earth elements in common vine leaves is achieved through extraction from soil and transport in the xylem sap
Full text linkRare Earth Elements play a critical role in current clean technologies but face scarcity and environmental challenges in their extraction. Using semi-natural controlled experiments, we tested the ability of V. vinifera L. to accumulate Rare Earth Elements naturally present in the soil. We demonstrate that V. vinifera L. passively transports all Rare Earth Elements from soil to leaves via Xylem-sap mirroring soil conditions. Since this process starts from the fifth month of V. vinifera L. growth without damaging the crops, we. estimate that it is possible to recover 900 milligrams of Rare Earth Elements per hectares from vineyard without harvesting the whole plant. We propose the direct extraction of Rare Earth Elements from leaves overcoming unstainable biomass burning yielding environmental and economic benefits.The pathway for the accumulation of rare earth elements in Vitis vinifera L. leaves is extraction from vineyard soils and subsequent transport in the xylem sap, suggests a semi-natural controlled experiment
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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