Storage effects on nutritional quality of commonly consumed cereals

Storage effects on nutritional quality of commonly consumed cereal grains are studied. Freshly harvested wheat, maize and rice grains were stored at 10, 25 and 45 °C for six months. A significant decrease in pH and an increase in titratable acidity was observed during storage of these three cereal grains at 25 and 45 °C. A gradual decline in moisture, total available lysine and thiamine contents was observed during storage. Total available lysine contents decreased by 6.50% and 18.5% in wheat, 14.3% and 20.7% in maize and 23.7% and 34.2% in rice during six months of storage at 25 and 45 °C, respectively. Six month’s storage of rice, maize and wheat grains at 25 and 45 °C resulted in reduction of thiamine contents by 16.7% and 29.2%, 17.2% and 24.1% and 21.4% and 29.5%, respectively. About 36.4–44.4% decrease in total soluble sugars at 45 °C and 9.30–31.8% increase in total soluble sugars were observed at 10 and 25 °C during six months storage of these cereal grains. Protein and starch digestibilities of cereal grains also deceased during six months of storage at 25 and 45 °C. No significant change in nutritional quality was observed during storage of cereal grains at 10 °C.     

Influence of oxygen vacancies on the structural,dielectric, and magnetic properties of (Mn,Co) co-doped ZnO nanostructures

We analysed the variation and effect of oxygen vacancies on the structural, dielectric and magnetic properties in case of Mn (4%) and Co (1, 2 and 4%) co-doped ZnO nanoparticles (NPs), synthesized by chemical precipitation route and annealed at 750 °C for 2 h. From the XRD, the calculated average crystallite size increased from15.30?±?0.73 nm to 16.71?±?012 nm, when Co content is increased from 1 to 4%. Enhancement of dopants (Mn, Co) introduced more and more oxygen vacancies to ZnO lattice confirmed from EDX and XPS. The high-temperature annealing leads to reduction of the dielectric properties due to enhancement in grain growth (large grain volume and lesser number of grain boundaries) with the incorporation of Co and Mn ions into the ZnO lattice. The electrical conductivity of the Mn doped and (Mn, Co) co-doped ZnO samples were enhanced due to increase in the volume of conducting grains and charge density (liberation of trapped charge carriers in oxygen vacancies and free charge carriers at higher frequencies). The Mn-doped and (Mn, Co) co-doped ZnO NPs show ferromagnetic (FM) behaviour. The saturation and remnant magnetizations (M_s and M_r) elevates from (0.235 to 1.489)?×?10^?2 and (0.12 to 0.27)?×?10^?2 emu/g while Coercivity (H_c) reduced from 97 to 36 Oe with enhancement in the concentration of dopants in ZnO matrix. Oxygen vacancies were found to be the main reason for room-temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM) in the doped and co-doped ZnO NPs. The results show that the enhanced dielectric and magnetic properties of Mn doped and (Mn, Co) co-doped ZnO is strongly correlated with the concentration of oxygen vacancies. The observed enhanced RTFM, dielectric properties and electrical conductivity makes TM doped ZnO nanoparticles suitable for spintronics, microelectronics and optoelectronics based applications.