Reactivity of flavanols: Their fate in physical food processing and recent advances in their analysis by depolymerization

Flavanols, a subgroup of polyphenols, are secondary metabolites with antioxidant properties naturally produced in various plants (e.g., green tea, cocoa, grapes, and apples); they are a major polyphenol class in human foods and beverages, and have recognized effect on maintaining human health. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate their changes (i.e., oxidation, polymerization, degradation, and epimerization) during various physical processing (i.e., heating, drying, mechanical shearing, high-pressure, ultrasound, and radiation) to improve the nutritional value of food products. However, the roles of flavanols, in particular for their polymerized forms, are often underestimated, for a large part because of analytical challenges: they are difficult to extract quantitatively, and their quantification demands chemical reactions. This review examines the existing data on the effects of different physical processing techniques on the content of flavanols and highlights the changes in epimerization and degree of polymerization, as well as some of the latest acidolysis methods for proanthocyanidin characterization and quantification. More and more evidence show that physical processing can affect content but also modify the structure of flavanols by promoting a series of internal reactions. The most important reactivity of flavanols in processing includes oxidative coupling and rearrangements, chain cleavage, structural rearrangements (e.g., polymerization, degradation, and epimerization), and addition to other macromolecules, that is, proteins and polysaccharides. Some acidolysis methods for the analysis of polymeric proanthocyanidins have been updated, which has contributed to complete analysis of proanthocyanidin structures in particular regarding their proportion of A-type proanthocyanidins and their degree of polymerization in various plants. However, future research is also needed to better extract and characterize high-polymer proanthocyanidins, whether in their native or modified forms.     

Bio-based polyurethane films using white dextrins

Several new eco-friendly materials have the potential to replace conventional petroleum-derived materials and monomers. Among them are natural polysaccharides. The use of polysaccharides in polyurethane (PU) synthesis has not yet been studied extensively, even though as multihydroxyl compounds, they can easily serve as crosslinkers in PU synthesis. One naturally occurring (hyper-)branched polymer is amylopectin, a component of starch. In this work, we report the PU synthesis and film-forming capacity using the asymmetric cyclic aliphatic diisocyanate—isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) with acetylated and pristine partially hydrolyzed amylopectin/white dextrin (AVEDEX W80) as a crosslinker. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47454.     

庄旺煤矿综放工作面顶煤冒放性分析

结合庄旺煤矿50208综放工作面煤层赋存特征,系统分析了开采深度、煤层强度、煤层厚度、煤层夹矸、煤层顶板及顶煤节理裂隙对综放工作面顶煤冒放性的影响,并通过隶属度法对庄旺煤矿顶煤冒放性的影响因素进行计算,做出综合评价,最终计算得工作面顶煤冒放性隶属度值μ为0.701,冒放等级为中等。因此,庄旺煤矿采用综采放顶煤回采工艺是可行的。     

植物蛋白素肉原料与工艺的研究进展

为缓解肉类供给不足的压力,以营养价值较高的植物蛋白素肉产品替代传统肉类成为食品研究发展的新方向。然而,目前缺少对植物蛋白素肉的产品配方、加工技术、产品品质、消费者态度等的系统综述。因此,该文总结了植物蛋白素肉的组成成分及其对产品品质的影响,分析了植物蛋白素肉在加工过程中所应用的加工技术及在质构、颜色、风味、营养方面的品质现状,进而阐述了植物蛋白素肉的市场接受程度,以期促进植物蛋白素肉科学研究的进一步发展,并促进其产品市场的扩大化。     

Modeling and thermodynamic analysis of thermal performance in self-pressurized liquid hydrogen tanks

Liquid hydrogen (LH₂) is one of the most economic methods for large-scaled utilization of hydrogen energy. However, safe operation and storage of LH₂ relies on accurate prediction of the pressure rise and adequate investigation on thermal behaviors inside LH₂ tank. In light of this, a modified thermal multi-zone model (TMZM) considering heat and mass transfer between vapor and liquid is developed in this paper. The model has a maximum relative error of 4.67% in predicting pressure rise against the experimental results from NASA. A thermodynamic analysis method is proposed to clarify the influences of key parameters including the temperature, compressibility factor and density of vapor, and working conditions including heat leakage and initial superheated degree on the pressurization rate. The results indicate that temperature of vapor in the ullage and vapor-liquid interfacial mass transfer rate are two main parameters determining the pressurization rate, and the effects of the two parameters are different between different stages. The distinction of stages depends on heat leakage and initial superheated degree. For the working condition with an initial filling rate of 50% and a heat leakage of 10 W, temperature of vapor is the parameter dominates pressurization rate during 96.8% of the whole self-pressurization process. Heat leakage also has a vital impact on the distinction of stages, when heat leakage increases to 80 W, the temperature of vapor dominating stage will reduce to 46.4%. Furthermore, pressurization rate is sensitive to initial superheated degree in the ullage. An increase of 4 K of the initial superheated degree leads to a 53.3% decrease of the pressurization rate. This study provides a useful method for the reliable design and quick optimization of high performance LH₂ tanks.     

Anhydrous proton conductivity of sulfonated polysulfone/deep eutectic solvents (DESs) composite membranes: Effect of sulfonation degree and DES composition

The potential use of deep eutectic solvents (DESs) for anhydrous conductivity of sulfonated polysulfone membrane is presented. To this end, different molar ratios of sodium bromide as hydrogen bond acceptor (HBA) and ethylene glycol as hydrogen bond donor (HBD) are used for the synthesis of DESs. Two sulfonation degrees (DS) of 30 and 40% are also adjusted for the synthesis of sulfonated polysulfones. The synthesized DESs have suitable thermal stability as well as low viscosity to provide interconnected ionic pathways within the membranes. The proton conductivity of membranes is mainly influenced by the HBD/HBA molar ratio of DES as well as the DS of sulfonated polymer. The maximum proton conductivity of 301 mS/cm at 100 °C is obtained for the polymer with 40% DS containing a DES with a higher HBD/HBA molar ratio. The prepared composite membranes have great potential for fuel cell performance, especially in anhydrous conditions.     

Influence of branching regularity on the behavior of hyperbranched polymers in solution

A carbosilane pseudo‐dendrimer with irregular structure and degree of branching DB = 1 was synthesized and fractionated. The molar masses of the obtained fractions ranged from 5000 to 490 000 g mol^?1. The hydrodynamic and conformational properties were studied by the methods of light scattering, sedimentation‐diffusion analysis and viscometry in dilute hexane and toluene solutions. The Mark ? Kuhn ? Houwink dependences were obtained. The results for the pseudo‐dendrimer are compared with the data for the initial hyperbranched poly(diallylcarbosilane) with DB = 0.5 and carbosilane dendrimer. It is shown that the solution properties of the pseudo‐dendrimer are close to those for the irregular hyperbranched polymer and differ significantly from the dendrimer behavior. Hence, it is branching regularity rather than the degree of branching that determines the conformational and hydrodynamic properties of hyperbranched polymers with a high degree of branching DB ≥ 0.5. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry     

U.S. regulatory perspectives on the back end of the fuel cycle: EUROSAFE 2013 proceeding

For the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the reactor licensees it regulates, there are a number of contemporary issues associated with the back end of the fuel cycle including, the agency's revision to its “Waste Confidence” decision and the path-forward for high-level waste disposal. Additionally, the 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future recommendations, the future of reprocessing, consolidated interim spent fuel storage, and maintaining technical competence within the NRC in challenging budgetary conditions are addressed. I conclude that there is confidence in the feasibility of safe storage of spent nuclear fuel following the licensed operational life of a reactor and any change in high-level waste policy will require Congressional action to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.     

A light-weight trust-based QoS routing algorithm for ad hoc networks

In a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), the lack of a trusted infrastructure makes secure and reliable packet forwarding very challenging, especially for providing QoS guarantee for multimedia applications. In this paper, we firstly introduce the concept of trust and QoS metric estimation into establishing a trust-based QoS model. In this model, we estimate the trust degree between nodes from direct trust computation of direct observation and indirect trust computation by neighbors’ recommendations. On the other hand, due to the NP-completeness of the multi-QoS constraints problem, we only take into account link delay as the QoS constraint requirement. Then, we design a trust-based QoS routing algorithm (called TQR) from the trade-off between trust degree and link delay. At last, by using NS2 we implement this algorithm based on AODV (Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector). We compare its performance with AODV, Watchdog-DSR and QAODV. The simulation results show that TQR scheme can prevent attacks from malicious nodes and improve the security performance of the whole network, especially in terms of packet delivery ratio, average end-to-end delay, routing packet overhead and detection ratio of malicious nodes.     

Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP): A versatile and forceful tool for functional membranes

The progress in atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) provides an effective means for the design and preparation of functional membranes. Polymeric membranes with different macromolecular architectures applied in fuel cells, including block and graft copolymers are conveniently prepared via ATRP. Moreover, ATRP has also been widely used to introduce functionality onto the membrane surface to enhance its use in specific applications, such as antifouling, stimuli-responsive, adsorption function and pervaporation. In this review, the recent design and synthesis of advanced functional membranes via the ATRP technique are discussed in detail and their especial advantages are highlighted by selected examples extract the principles for preparation or modification of membranes using the ATRP methodology.