Environmental Health Commons^™

Advances In Emerging Technologies For The Decontamination Of The Food Contact Surfaces, Shubham Sharma, Swarna Jaiswal, Brendan Duffy, Amit Jaiswal

Articles

Foodborne pathogens could be transferred to food from food contact surfaces contaminated by poor hygiene or biofilm formation. The food processing industry has various conditions favouring microbes' adherence, such as moisture, nutrients, and the microbial inoculums obtained from the raw material. The function of the ideal antimicrobial surface is preventing initial attachment of the microbes, killing the microbes or/and removing the dead bacteria. This review article provides detail about the challenges food industries are facing with respect to food contact materials. It also summarises the merits and demerits of several sanitizing methods developed for industrial use. Furthermore, it reviews the …

Emerging Technologies For The Production Of Nanocellulose From Lignocellulosic Biomass, Dileswar Pradhan, Amit Jaiswal, Swarna Jaiswal

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Nanocellulose is a unique and promising natural nanomaterial and has gained significant attention due to its applications in several important areas. Thus, researchers are continuously looking for the most efficient, sustainable, economically viable, and environmentally friendly production technologies to fulfil its growing demand. Conventional production technologies, which include various physical, chemical, and physicochemical methods, are currently inadequate for this purpose and have several limitations such as long processing time, high energy consumption, low recovery of nanocellulose, and many others. To overcome these shortcomings, scientists have investigated the prospect of utilizing emerging processing technologies such as microwave irradiation, deep eutectic solvent, …

Application Of High-Intensity Ultrasound To Improve Food Processing Efficiency: A Review, Prasad Chavan, Pallavi Sharma, Sajeev Rattan Sharma, Tarsem Chand Mittal, Amit Jaiswal

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The use of non-thermal processing technologies has grown in response to an ever-increasing demand for high-quality, convenient meals with natural taste and flavour that are free of chemical additions and preservatives. Food processing plays a crucial role in addressing food security issues by reducing loss and controlling spoilage. Among the several non-thermal processing methods, ultrasound technology has shown to be very beneficial. Ultrasound processing, whether used alone or in combination with other methods, improves food quality significantly and is thus considered beneficial. Cutting, freezing, drying, homogenization, foaming and defoaming, filtration, emulsification, and extraction are just a few of the applications …

Dough Properties And Baking Characteristics Of White Bread, As Affected By Addition Of Raw, Germinated And Toasted Pea Flour, Kim A. Millar, Catherine Barry-Ryan, Roisin Burke, Sinead Mccarthy, Eimear Gallagher

Articles

Thermal and non-thermal processing may alter the structure and improve the techno-functional properties of pulses and pulse flours, increasing their range of applications in protein-enhanced foods. The effects of germination and toasting of yellow peas (Pisum sativum) on flour and dough characteristics were investigated. Wheat flour was substituted with raw, germinated and toasted pea flour (30%). The resulting bread-baking properties were assessed. Toasting increased dough water absorption and improved dough stability compared with germinated and raw pea flour (p < 0.05). This resulted in bread loaves with comparable specific volume and loaf density to that of a wheat flour control. Significant correlations between dough rheological properties and loaf characteristics were observed. Addition of pea flours increased the protein content of the breads from 8.4% in the control white bread, to 10.1–10.8% (p < 0.001). Toasting demonstrated the potential to improve the techno-functional properties of pea flour. Results highlight the potential application of pea flour in bread-making to increase the protein content.

Review: Epidemiological Evidence Of Groundwater Contribution To Global Enteric Disease, 1948–2015, Heather Murphy, Morgan Prioleau, Mark Borchardt, Paul Hynds

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Globally, approximately 2.2 billion people rely on groundwater for daily consumption. It is widely accepted that groundwater is more pristine than surface water but while this assumption is frequently the case, groundwater is not ubiquitously free of contaminants; accordingly, this presumption can result in an unfounded and potentially hazardous sense of security among owners, operators and users. The current paper presents a review of published literature providing epidemiological evidence of the contribution of groundwater to global human enteric infection. An emphasis is placed on enteric pathogens transmitted via the faecal-oral route, and specifically those associated with acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI). …

Feasibility Of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (Libs) As An At-Line Validation Tool For Calcium Determination In Infant Formula, Xavier Cama-Moncunill, Maria Markiewicz-Keszycka, Yash Dixit, Raquel Cama-Moncunill, Maria Piedad Casado-Gavalda, Patrick J. Cullen, Carl Sullivan

Articles

In this study, a 150 mJ laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) system was assessed to determine calcium content in infant formula (IF) samples. LIBS is a promising emission spectroscopic technique for elemental analysis, which offers advantages over conventional methods such as real-time analyses, little to no sample preparation and ease of use. The aim of this work was to evaluate the feasibility of LIBS as an at-line tool for IF manufacturing. To this end, IF mixtures with varying content of calcium were prepared over a range (approx. 1.5–7 mg/g of calcium) selected to be in conformity with the guidelines provided by …

Impact Of Atmospheric Pressure Nonequilibrium Plasma Discharge On Polymer Surface Metrology, Laurence Scally, James Lalor, Patrick J. Cullen, Vladimir Milosavljevic

Articles

Due to the attraction of plasma technologies as a clean and efficient means of surface modification, significant research has gone into the physical and chemical aspects of polymer functionalization. In this study, it was shown that the use of an atmospheric plasma jet can efficiently modify the surface of polyethylene terephthalate samples and change their hydrophobic properties to more hydrophilic characteristics. The dependence on the changes with respect to time, distance, and atomic oxygen (O I) intensity were considered as factors. It was found that with closer proximity to the plasma source (without causing thermal degradation) and with increasing levels …

Size Dependent Translocation And Fetal Accumulation Of Gold Nanoparticles From Maternal Blood In The Rat., Manuela Semmler-Behnke, Jens Lipka, Alexander Wenk, Martin Schäffler, Furong Tian, Günter Schmid, Günter Oberdörster, Wolfgang G. Kreyling

Articles

Background

There is evidence that nanoparticles (NP) cross epithelial and endothelial body barriers. We hypothesized that gold (Au) NP, once in the blood circulation of pregnant rats, will cross the placental barrier during pregnancy size-dependently and accumulate in the fetal organism by 1. transcellular transport across the hemochorial placenta, 2. transcellular transport across amniotic membranes 3. transport through ~20 nm wide transtrophoblastic channels in a size dependent manner. The three AuNP sizes used to test this hypothesis are either well below, or of similar size or well above the diameters of the transtrophoblastic channels.

Methods

We intravenously injected monodisperse, negatively …

Analogues Of The Epoxy Resin Monomer Diglycidyl Ether Of Bisphenol F: Effects On Contact Allergenic Potency And Cytotoxicity, Niamh O'Boyle, Tamara Delaine, Kristina Luthman, Andreas Natsch, Ann-Therese Karlberg

Articles

Diglycidyl ethers of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and bisphenol F (DGEBF) are widely used as components in epoxy resin thermosetting products. They are known to cause occupational and non-occupational allergic contact dermatitis. The aim of this study is to investigate analogues of DGEBF with regard to contact allergy and cytotoxicity. A comprehensive knowledge of the structural features that contribute to the allergenic and cytotoxic effects of DGEBF will guide the development of future novel epoxy resin systems with reduced health hazards for those coming into contact with them. It was found that the allergenic effects of DGEBF were dependent on its …