Co-composting of poultry manure and rubber wood sawdust was performed with the ratio of 2：1（V/V） for a period of 60 days. An investigation was carried out to study the extracellular enzymatic activities and structu...Co-composting of poultry manure and rubber wood sawdust was performed with the ratio of 2：1（V/V） for a period of 60 days. An investigation was carried out to study the extracellular enzymatic activities and structural degradation utilizing Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy（FT-IR）, thermogravimetry and differential thermal analysis（TG/DTA）and scanning electron microscopy（SEM）. The microbial succession was also determined by using denaturing gel gradient electrophoresis（DGGE）. The compost was able to reach its highest temperature of 71°C at day 3 and stabilized between 30 and 40°C for 8 weeks.CMCase, FPase and β-glucosidase acted synergistically in order to degrade the cellulosic substrate. The xylanase activities increased gradually during the composting and reached the peak value of 11.637 U/g on day 35, followed by a sharp decline. Both Li P and Mn P activities reached their peak values on day 35 with 0.431 and 0.132 U/g respectively. The FT-IR spectra revealed an increase in aromaticity and a decrease in aliphatic compounds such as carbohydrates as decomposition proceeded. TGA/DTG data exhibited significant changes in weight loss in compost samples, indicating degradation of organic matter. SEM micrographs showed higher amounts of parenchyma exposed on the surface of rubber wood sawdust at day 60, showing significant degradation. DGGE and 16 S r DNA analyses showed that Burkholderia sp., Pandoraea sp., and Pseudomonas sp. were present throughout the composting process. Ornithinibacillus sp. and Castellaniella ginsengisoli were only found in the initial stage of the composting, while different strains of Burkholderia sp. also occurred in the later stage of composting.展开更多
The drying kinetics of Roselle （Hibiscus sabdariffa L） of variety Terengganu （UMKL-1） and the quality attribution of Roselle were studied. The experiments were conducted using four different drying methods, includ...The drying kinetics of Roselle （Hibiscus sabdariffa L） of variety Terengganu （UMKL-1） and the quality attribution of Roselle were studied. The experiments were conducted using four different drying methods, including solar greenhouse drying （SD）, solar greenhouse with intermittent heat pump drying （SIHP）, hot air drying （HA） and heat pump drying （HP）. Among the four drying methods, HP achieved the highest drying rate at a range from 0.054 g H20-（g DM）-1. rain-1 to 0.212 g H20-（g DM）-1. rain 1 while SD had the lowest drying rate, measured at 0.042 g H2O. （g DM） 1.min- 1. The analysis on colour kinetics revealed that there is no significant colour loss （p 〉 0.05） observed from HP＇s dried Roselle. Greater amount of flavonoid compounds i.e. protocatechuic acid was found in SD and SIHP dried finished product whereas HP＇s dried Roselle contains higher percentage of catechin as compared to other drying methods.展开更多
The ferric reducing antioxidant power, total phenolic content, radical scavenging activity, amino acid content and sugar content of spray dried Arenga pinnata juice powder were evaluated to determine the quality of sp...The ferric reducing antioxidant power, total phenolic content, radical scavenging activity, amino acid content and sugar content of spray dried Arenga pinnata juice powder were evaluated to determine the quality of spray dried powder obtained by spray drying of fresh Arenga pinnata juice at inlet temperature of 130 ℃, feed flow rate of 350 mL/h, outlet temperature of 70 ℃ and maltodextrin 10 DE addition at 20%. Powder obtained has a total phenolic compounds content of 5.82 mg/100 g of gallic acid equivalent （GAE） and antioxidant potential identified by free radical scavenging activity （IC50） was 0.6 μmol/g. The total sugar content ofArenga pinnata powder resulted in 30.14%. The analysis of free amino acids depicted the presence of lysine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid and alanine at higher levels. The nutritional profile of the powder is vital in delivering beneficial properties when reconstituted into juice.展开更多
The fruit industry has been known as one of the largest businesses in Malaysia,where most of the fruits pass through the peeling process well in advance before the final product as juice in a bottle or slices in a can...The fruit industry has been known as one of the largest businesses in Malaysia,where most of the fruits pass through the peeling process well in advance before the final product as juice in a bottle or slices in a can.The current industrial fruit peeling techniques are passive and inefficient by cutting parts of the pulp of the fruit with peels leading to losses.To avoid this issue,a multi-axis CNC fruit peeler can be used to precisely peel the outer layer with the guidance of a 3D virtual model of fruit.In this work,a new cost-effective method of 3D image reconstruction was developed to convert 36 fruit images captured by a normal RGB camera to a 3D model by capturing a single image every 10 degrees of fruit rotation along a fixed axis.The point cloud data extracted with edge detection were passed to Blender 3D software for meshing in different approaches.The vertical link frame meshing method developed in this research proved a qualitative similarity between the output result and the scanned fruit in a processing time of less than 50 seconds.展开更多
This work describes a study of tabletting of selected Malaysian herbs such as Eurycoma longifolia Jack, Ficus deltoidea and Morinda citrifolia. These herbs are famous for their therapeutic properties and are used as h...This work describes a study of tabletting of selected Malaysian herbs such as Eurycoma longifolia Jack, Ficus deltoidea and Morinda citrifolia. These herbs are famous for their therapeutic properties and are used as herbal medicine or as medicinal food. A cylindrical uniaxial die of 13 mm was used to compress the herb powders into tablets. Pressures ranging from 7.5 MPa to 75 MPa were applied using a universal testing machine. Two feed weights, 0.5 g and 1.0 g, were used to produce the tablets. A binder, the microcrystalline cellulose known as Avicel, was used to investigate its effect on tabletting. Properties associated with both the binder and the compounds were studied, and binary mixtures with compositions ranging from 10% to 60% were examined. The strength of the herb tablets was then tested using an indirect tensile strength test. Upon compression, the Morinda citrifolia powder showed the highest density compared to that of Avicel. However, due to its high elasticity, the tensile strength of the Morinda citrifolia tablet was the lowest. The experimental data were also verified using an established model for compression property development. The results indicated that this simple approach can be used to understand the tabletting characteristics of these herbs.展开更多
The authors regret for the typo error made in the materials and methods section under the subtopic 2.2.2.and 2.2.3 in the original article.Subtopic 2.2.2 In the original article:“The AFPC powder was individually homo...The authors regret for the typo error made in the materials and methods section under the subtopic 2.2.2.and 2.2.3 in the original article.Subtopic 2.2.2 In the original article:“The AFPC powder was individually homo-genised in a specific buffer to yield a 1%(w/v)solution and hydrolysed using different enzymes at 3%(w/v)including trypsin….”展开更多
The high nitrite content in edible bird’s nests is a major concern to the local swiftlet industry.It lowers the price of the edible bird’s nests and it brings severe health hazards to consumers and farmers.This rese...The high nitrite content in edible bird’s nests is a major concern to the local swiftlet industry.It lowers the price of the edible bird’s nests and it brings severe health hazards to consumers and farmers.This research investigated the nitrite and nitrate contents of eight types of local edible bird’s nests by using ion chromatography system and evaluating its colour using the CIE system in L^*a^*b^*parameters.The nitrite content obtained ranged from 5.7 lg/g for the house nests to 843.8 lg/g for the cave nests.The nitrate content for the house and cave nests was 98.2 lg/g and 36,999.4 lg/g,respectively.The cave nests with darker and redder colour had higher nitrite and nitrate contents than the brighter and more yellow house nests.This likely suggests that the nitrite and nitrate contents have correlations with edible bird’s nests colour.Correlations studies suggested that the nitrite content had high correlations with colour parameters,L^*a^*b^*of edible bird’s nests at significant level of P<0.10.These findings suggest that edible bird’s nests’colour may be a useful indicator for measuring nitrite and nitrate contaminations.展开更多
There were needs to develop some preservation technique to enhance the shelf life of Paneer because it is highly perishable in nature at ambient conditions.Drying can be one of the methods to increase shelf life of pa...There were needs to develop some preservation technique to enhance the shelf life of Paneer because it is highly perishable in nature at ambient conditions.Drying can be one of the methods to increase shelf life of paneer.This study was undertaken to dry 1.5 cm3 paneer at 62,72 and 82℃temperatures and 10,14 and 18 kPa absolute pressures with superheated steam.Moisture content,drying rate and moisture ratio data were generated by conducting the experiments in low pressure superheated steam dryer.These data were used to develop Artificial Neural Network(ANN)models.Optimized ANN models were developed for rapid and more accurate prediction of moisture content with two hidden layers and seven nurons having R20.9991,drying rate with two hidden layers and nine nurons having R20.9846 and moisture ratio with two hidden layers and seven nurons having R20.9991 in drying,based on two hidden layers and one to nine neurons in each hidden layer.Measured values of moisture content,drying rate and moisture ratio were predicted with an R^(2)>0.98.System equation has been developed to predict moisture content,drying rate and moisture ratio at any given conditions.展开更多
Azolla pinnata is an underutilised fern and has been found to be a highly promising and sustainable source,making it a potential new plant-based protein source that can be used as a functional food ingredient.Therefor...Azolla pinnata is an underutilised fern and has been found to be a highly promising and sustainable source,making it a potential new plant-based protein source that can be used as a functional food ingredient.Therefore,the present work produced Azolla pinnata fern protein concentrate(AFPC)through alkaline solubilisation with isoelectric precipitation and investigated the effect of different proteases at varying degree of hydrolysis(DH)on the physicochemical,techno-functional properties and biological activities of Azolla fern protein hydrolysates.Enzymolysis with all proteases decreased the hydrophobicity,denaturation temperature and secondary struc-tures(β-sheet andα-helix)as the DH increased.Furthermore,the techno-functional properties including water and oil holding capacities,emulsion properties and foam stability were significantly reduced with increasing the DH,except for solubility and foaming capacity.Additionally,the pH had a positive correlation with all the techno-functional properties,except for water holding capacity.Hydrolysis with all proteases had a positive effect on the antioxidant and antibacterial activities.The partially hydrolysed protein with alcalase showed excellent techno-functional and antioxidant properties,while excellent antibacterial activity was observed for hydrolysate produced by flavourzyme under extensive hydrolysis.The current findings pave the way for the application of Azolla fern protein hydrolysates as promising and sustainable plant-based peptide to be utilised as nutraceutical and functional food ingredients.展开更多
In this study,the controlled nucleation and growth of gold nanoparticles(GNPs)were investigated using a self-repelled mist in a liquid chemical reaction environment.An electrospray-based chemical reduction method was ...In this study,the controlled nucleation and growth of gold nanoparticles(GNPs)were investigated using a self-repelled mist in a liquid chemical reaction environment.An electrospray-based chemical reduction method was conducted in the aqueous region and at room temperature to synthesize the polymeric-stabilized gold nanoparticles.The electrospray technique was used to atomize a hydrogen tetrachloraurate(III)(HAuCl4)precursor solution into electrostatically charged droplets.The atomized droplets were dispersed in an aqueous reaction bath containing L-ascorbic acid as a reducing agent and polyvinylpyrrolidone(PVP)as a stabilizer.The effect of the electrospray parameters,specifically the flow rate and electrospray droplet size,as well as the reaction conditions such as the concentration of reactants,pH,and stabilizer(PVP),were investigated.The mean diameter of the GNPs increased from around 4 to 9 nm with an increase in the electrospray flow rate,droplet size,and current passing through the electrospray jet.Spherical and monodispersed GNPs were synthesized at a relatively high flow rate of 2 mL/h and a moderate concentration of 2 mM of precursor solution.The smallest-sized GNP with a high monodispersity was obtained in the reaction bath at a high pH of 10.5 and in the presence of PVP.It is expected that continuous and mass production of the engineered GNPs and other noble metal nanoparticles could be established for scaling up nanoparticle production via the proposed electrospray-based chemical reduction method.展开更多
基金financially aided by Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (No. 5524376) from the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia and Knowledge Transfer Program Grant (KTP-6228118) from Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Malaysia
文摘Co-composting of poultry manure and rubber wood sawdust was performed with the ratio of 2：1（V/V） for a period of 60 days. An investigation was carried out to study the extracellular enzymatic activities and structural degradation utilizing Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy（FT-IR）, thermogravimetry and differential thermal analysis（TG/DTA）and scanning electron microscopy（SEM）. The microbial succession was also determined by using denaturing gel gradient electrophoresis（DGGE）. The compost was able to reach its highest temperature of 71°C at day 3 and stabilized between 30 and 40°C for 8 weeks.CMCase, FPase and β-glucosidase acted synergistically in order to degrade the cellulosic substrate. The xylanase activities increased gradually during the composting and reached the peak value of 11.637 U/g on day 35, followed by a sharp decline. Both Li P and Mn P activities reached their peak values on day 35 with 0.431 and 0.132 U/g respectively. The FT-IR spectra revealed an increase in aromaticity and a decrease in aliphatic compounds such as carbohydrates as decomposition proceeded. TGA/DTG data exhibited significant changes in weight loss in compost samples, indicating degradation of organic matter. SEM micrographs showed higher amounts of parenchyma exposed on the surface of rubber wood sawdust at day 60, showing significant degradation. DGGE and 16 S r DNA analyses showed that Burkholderia sp., Pandoraea sp., and Pseudomonas sp. were present throughout the composting process. Ornithinibacillus sp. and Castellaniella ginsengisoli were only found in the initial stage of the composting, while different strains of Burkholderia sp. also occurred in the later stage of composting.
基金Supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry(MOA),Malaysia(NER30001)
文摘The drying kinetics of Roselle （Hibiscus sabdariffa L） of variety Terengganu （UMKL-1） and the quality attribution of Roselle were studied. The experiments were conducted using four different drying methods, including solar greenhouse drying （SD）, solar greenhouse with intermittent heat pump drying （SIHP）, hot air drying （HA） and heat pump drying （HP）. Among the four drying methods, HP achieved the highest drying rate at a range from 0.054 g H20-（g DM）-1. rain-1 to 0.212 g H20-（g DM）-1. rain 1 while SD had the lowest drying rate, measured at 0.042 g H2O. （g DM） 1.min- 1. The analysis on colour kinetics revealed that there is no significant colour loss （p 〉 0.05） observed from HP＇s dried Roselle. Greater amount of flavonoid compounds i.e. protocatechuic acid was found in SD and SIHP dried finished product whereas HP＇s dried Roselle contains higher percentage of catechin as compared to other drying methods.
文摘The ferric reducing antioxidant power, total phenolic content, radical scavenging activity, amino acid content and sugar content of spray dried Arenga pinnata juice powder were evaluated to determine the quality of spray dried powder obtained by spray drying of fresh Arenga pinnata juice at inlet temperature of 130 ℃, feed flow rate of 350 mL/h, outlet temperature of 70 ℃ and maltodextrin 10 DE addition at 20%. Powder obtained has a total phenolic compounds content of 5.82 mg/100 g of gallic acid equivalent （GAE） and antioxidant potential identified by free radical scavenging activity （IC50） was 0.6 μmol/g. The total sugar content ofArenga pinnata powder resulted in 30.14%. The analysis of free amino acids depicted the presence of lysine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid and alanine at higher levels. The nutritional profile of the powder is vital in delivering beneficial properties when reconstituted into juice.
基金the support from the University-Private Matching Fund(UniPRIMA)from the Research Management CentreUniMAPWalta Engineering Sdn.Bhd.
文摘The fruit industry has been known as one of the largest businesses in Malaysia,where most of the fruits pass through the peeling process well in advance before the final product as juice in a bottle or slices in a can.The current industrial fruit peeling techniques are passive and inefficient by cutting parts of the pulp of the fruit with peels leading to losses.To avoid this issue,a multi-axis CNC fruit peeler can be used to precisely peel the outer layer with the guidance of a 3D virtual model of fruit.In this work,a new cost-effective method of 3D image reconstruction was developed to convert 36 fruit images captured by a normal RGB camera to a 3D model by capturing a single image every 10 degrees of fruit rotation along a fixed axis.The point cloud data extracted with edge detection were passed to Blender 3D software for meshing in different approaches.The vertical link frame meshing method developed in this research proved a qualitative similarity between the output result and the scanned fruit in a processing time of less than 50 seconds.
文摘This work describes a study of tabletting of selected Malaysian herbs such as Eurycoma longifolia Jack, Ficus deltoidea and Morinda citrifolia. These herbs are famous for their therapeutic properties and are used as herbal medicine or as medicinal food. A cylindrical uniaxial die of 13 mm was used to compress the herb powders into tablets. Pressures ranging from 7.5 MPa to 75 MPa were applied using a universal testing machine. Two feed weights, 0.5 g and 1.0 g, were used to produce the tablets. A binder, the microcrystalline cellulose known as Avicel, was used to investigate its effect on tabletting. Properties associated with both the binder and the compounds were studied, and binary mixtures with compositions ranging from 10% to 60% were examined. The strength of the herb tablets was then tested using an indirect tensile strength test. Upon compression, the Morinda citrifolia powder showed the highest density compared to that of Avicel. However, due to its high elasticity, the tensile strength of the Morinda citrifolia tablet was the lowest. The experimental data were also verified using an established model for compression property development. The results indicated that this simple approach can be used to understand the tabletting characteristics of these herbs.
文摘The authors regret for the typo error made in the materials and methods section under the subtopic 2.2.2.and 2.2.3 in the original article.Subtopic 2.2.2 In the original article:“The AFPC powder was individually homo-genised in a specific buffer to yield a 1%(w/v)solution and hydrolysed using different enzymes at 3%(w/v)including trypsin….”
基金This research was funded from the Exploratory Research Grant Scheme(ERGS/1/2013/TK05/UPM/02/6)by Ministry of Education Malaysia.
文摘The high nitrite content in edible bird’s nests is a major concern to the local swiftlet industry.It lowers the price of the edible bird’s nests and it brings severe health hazards to consumers and farmers.This research investigated the nitrite and nitrate contents of eight types of local edible bird’s nests by using ion chromatography system and evaluating its colour using the CIE system in L^*a^*b^*parameters.The nitrite content obtained ranged from 5.7 lg/g for the house nests to 843.8 lg/g for the cave nests.The nitrate content for the house and cave nests was 98.2 lg/g and 36,999.4 lg/g,respectively.The cave nests with darker and redder colour had higher nitrite and nitrate contents than the brighter and more yellow house nests.This likely suggests that the nitrite and nitrate contents have correlations with edible bird’s nests colour.Correlations studies suggested that the nitrite content had high correlations with colour parameters,L^*a^*b^*of edible bird’s nests at significant level of P<0.10.These findings suggest that edible bird’s nests’colour may be a useful indicator for measuring nitrite and nitrate contaminations.
文摘There were needs to develop some preservation technique to enhance the shelf life of Paneer because it is highly perishable in nature at ambient conditions.Drying can be one of the methods to increase shelf life of paneer.This study was undertaken to dry 1.5 cm3 paneer at 62,72 and 82℃temperatures and 10,14 and 18 kPa absolute pressures with superheated steam.Moisture content,drying rate and moisture ratio data were generated by conducting the experiments in low pressure superheated steam dryer.These data were used to develop Artificial Neural Network(ANN)models.Optimized ANN models were developed for rapid and more accurate prediction of moisture content with two hidden layers and seven nurons having R20.9991,drying rate with two hidden layers and nine nurons having R20.9846 and moisture ratio with two hidden layers and seven nurons having R20.9991 in drying,based on two hidden layers and one to nine neurons in each hidden layer.Measured values of moisture content,drying rate and moisture ratio were predicted with an R^(2)>0.98.System equation has been developed to predict moisture content,drying rate and moisture ratio at any given conditions.
基金fully funded by Universiti Putra Malaysia under the research grant GP-GPB/2022/9711600.
文摘Azolla pinnata is an underutilised fern and has been found to be a highly promising and sustainable source,making it a potential new plant-based protein source that can be used as a functional food ingredient.Therefore,the present work produced Azolla pinnata fern protein concentrate(AFPC)through alkaline solubilisation with isoelectric precipitation and investigated the effect of different proteases at varying degree of hydrolysis(DH)on the physicochemical,techno-functional properties and biological activities of Azolla fern protein hydrolysates.Enzymolysis with all proteases decreased the hydrophobicity,denaturation temperature and secondary struc-tures(β-sheet andα-helix)as the DH increased.Furthermore,the techno-functional properties including water and oil holding capacities,emulsion properties and foam stability were significantly reduced with increasing the DH,except for solubility and foaming capacity.Additionally,the pH had a positive correlation with all the techno-functional properties,except for water holding capacity.Hydrolysis with all proteases had a positive effect on the antioxidant and antibacterial activities.The partially hydrolysed protein with alcalase showed excellent techno-functional and antioxidant properties,while excellent antibacterial activity was observed for hydrolysate produced by flavourzyme under extensive hydrolysis.The current findings pave the way for the application of Azolla fern protein hydrolysates as promising and sustainable plant-based peptide to be utilised as nutraceutical and functional food ingredients.
基金This paper was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China(Grant No.BK20191019)the Natural Science Research Project in Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province of China(Grant No.19KJB470022)+1 种基金the Scientific Research Start-up Foundation funding of High-level Introduction Talents of Nanjing Institute of Technology(Grant No.YKJ201912)the Open Fund Project of the Key Laboratory of Energy Thermal Conversion and Control of Ministry of Education of Southeast University.
文摘In this study,the controlled nucleation and growth of gold nanoparticles(GNPs)were investigated using a self-repelled mist in a liquid chemical reaction environment.An electrospray-based chemical reduction method was conducted in the aqueous region and at room temperature to synthesize the polymeric-stabilized gold nanoparticles.The electrospray technique was used to atomize a hydrogen tetrachloraurate(III)(HAuCl4)precursor solution into electrostatically charged droplets.The atomized droplets were dispersed in an aqueous reaction bath containing L-ascorbic acid as a reducing agent and polyvinylpyrrolidone(PVP)as a stabilizer.The effect of the electrospray parameters,specifically the flow rate and electrospray droplet size,as well as the reaction conditions such as the concentration of reactants,pH,and stabilizer(PVP),were investigated.The mean diameter of the GNPs increased from around 4 to 9 nm with an increase in the electrospray flow rate,droplet size,and current passing through the electrospray jet.Spherical and monodispersed GNPs were synthesized at a relatively high flow rate of 2 mL/h and a moderate concentration of 2 mM of precursor solution.The smallest-sized GNP with a high monodispersity was obtained in the reaction bath at a high pH of 10.5 and in the presence of PVP.It is expected that continuous and mass production of the engineered GNPs and other noble metal nanoparticles could be established for scaling up nanoparticle production via the proposed electrospray-based chemical reduction method.
