Bioactive compounds and advanced processing technology: Phaleria macrocarpa (sheff.) Boerl,a review

Recent technological advances and the development of new methods has provided an opportunity to obtain highly purified natural bioactive compound extracts with potential for the treatment and prevention of human diseases. The use of hazardous and toxic solvents for the extraction and processing of bioactive compounds from plant materials is considered a problem for health, safety and environmental pollution. Advanced technology aims to increase production of the desired compounds and find an alternative to using toxic solvents in the extraction of bioactive compounds from plant materials. The ever growing interest in plant bioactive compounds and today's concerns about environment issues have led to an increased need for an efficient and green extraction method. This review is focused on the extraction of bioactive compounds from plants using advanced and environment‐friendly methods such as supercritical fluid extraction, microwave‐assisted extraction, ultrasound‐assisted extraction and similar techniques that can extract rapidly and free from organic residues. An updated overview of the bioactive compounds present in the plant Phaleria macrocarpa and its extraction, fractionation, purification and isolation is provided. The advantages and disadvantages of both conventional and non‐conventional extraction methods are also discussed in this review. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry     

Effects of particle size and moisture content of maize grits on physical properties of expanded snacks

The main aim of this research was to investigate the effects of simultaneous changing of maize grits particle size and moisture content on some physical properties and microstructure of the expanded snacks produced by an industrial single screw extruder. Maize grits with different particle sizes of 212–299, 300–474, 475–680, 681–870, 871–1,016, and 1,017–1,070 μm and various moisture contents of 15, 16, 17, and 18% were used to manufacture puffed products. The samples produced with larger particle sizes and higher moisture content exhibited lower water absorption and water solubility indices and less expansion and crispiness than other samples. As microstructure results revealed, these samples showed more uneven surface and thicker cross‐section. Overall, controlling both moisture content and particle size of maize grits had significant effects on the quality of the snacks. However, the impact of changing particle size on the snack properties was greater than changing the moisture content. This research has implications in food industry in production of puffed snacks using extrusion process. The results provide practical and green methods of improving the quality of the snacks by choosing the appropriate feed particle size and moisture content. The approach introduced in this paper is easy to impediment in the food industry without the need to change extruder configuration or adding to the list of ingredients and additives.     

Drying Stress and Strain in Tension Wood: A Conventional Kiln Schedule to Efficiently Dry Mixed Tension/Normal Wood Boards in Poplar

Orthotropic drying stresses of tension and normal wood in poplar were evaluated. The degree of residual stresses was interpreted by prong and slice cutting tests. A strain gauge was employed to determine longitudinal drying stresses. Mixed tension/normal wood boards were also dried using three different schedules, T₈ F₄, T₈ F₅, and T₉ F₄ to find the best schedule. Results revealed more intense drying stress in the longitudinal and radial directions of tension wood. Despite a high susceptibility of the mixed tension/normal wood boards to drying defects, the quality of the boards dried by the schedule of T₉ F₄ was satisfactory.     

Extended kalman filter based nonlinear geometric control of a seeded batch cooling crystallizer

A nonlinear dynamic model of a seeded potash alum batch cooling crystallizer is presented. The model of the batch crystallizer is based on the conservation principles of mass, energy and population. In order to maintain constant supersaturation, a nonlinear geometric feedback controller is implemented. It is shown that compared to a natural and a simplified optimal cooling policies, the nonlinear geometric control (NCC) leads to a substantial improvement of the final crystal quality. An extended Kalman filter (EKF) is used as a closed loop observer for this nonlinear system to predict the non‐measurable state variables. It is found that the EKF is capable of effectively predicting the first four leading moments of the population density function. The effectiveness of the EKF based nonlinear geometric controller in the presence of plant/model mismatch is also studied. Simulation results show that the EKF based nonlinear geometric controller is reasonably robust in the presence of modeling error.     

Cascade closed-loop optimization and control of batch reactors

In this paper, a cascade closed-loop optimization and control strategy for batch reactors is proposed. Based on the reduction of a physical conservation model a cascade system is developed, which can effectively combine optimization and control to achieve good on-line optimization and tracking performance under the common condition where incomplete knowledge of the reaction system exists. A two-tier estimation scheme using a nonlinear observer for heat production rate and reaction rates is also developed. In the reaction rate estimation, calorimetric information is used. The on-line closed-loop optimization strategy uses a descending horizon dynamic optimization algorithm based on nonlinear programming and an additive unknown disturbance for feedback. A simple adaptive nonlinear tracking system is designed based on the generic model control concept. The efficiency of this strategy is demonstrated through simulations on a batch reactor under various operation conditions, such as noisy measurements, varying initial states and model mismatch.