How green is a chemical reaction? Application of LCA to green chemistry

In the present work Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used in order to evaluate a chemical reaction from an environmental point of view. The objective is to assess the usefulness of this methodology as an environmental tool to be applied to green chemistry. As an example, two routes of obtaining maleic anhydride are compared using LCA, to ascertain which one is the most environmentally friendly. From the results obtained in this work it can be concluded that LCA seems to be a valuable tool for the environmental assessment of a chemical reaction, because it takes into account all the life cycle stages of the process and discusses the impact of the environmental burdens inventoried according to a diversity of impact categories.     

Environmental implications of food loss probability in packaging design

In this paper, a new perspective of food packaging design is proposed by using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, in which shelf life and food loss probability were taken into account. The study focused on twenty-four scenarios of packaging of a ripened cheese obtained from sheep milk, in order to analyze the environmental implications of different packaging systems in terms of potential food loss. The aim is to provide an eco-indicator able to quantify the environmental indirect effects related to the different choices in the food packaging. Results highlighted that, by considering only the direct inputs and outputs of the packaging system, thinner and recyclable packaging materials sealed in air are more sustainable from an environmental point of view. On the contrary, if indirect effects of food loss probability are also taken into account (e.g. production and transport of cheese in order to reconstruct the stockpile), multilayer systems under modified headspace conditions are preferred packaging solutions. This is consequence of the fact that cheese production brings about high environmental impacts if compared to the other phases of the life cycle, therefore, the environmental implications of the choices adopted for the packaging phase are more affected from the capacity of reducing food losses than from the production and disposing of packaging materials.     

超高压作用下的食品包装问题

超高压技术是当前备受关注,且各国广泛开展研究的一项食品高新技术.超高压食品包装材料将伴随各类食品经受高压的作用和后续的储运过程.然而目前尚未形成与HPP技术配套的包装理论与技术.本研究拟对该领域的研究现状与局限性进行探讨,进而提出其未来的研究重点和发展方向.     

Life cycle assessment as a tool for the environmental improvement of the tannery industry in developing countries

A representative leather tannery industry in a Latin American developing country has been studied from an environmental point of view, including both technical and economic analysis. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology has been used for the quantification and evaluation of the impacts of the chromium tanning process as a basis to propose further improvement actions. Four main subsystems were considered: beamhouse, tanyard, retanning, and wood furnace. Damages to human health, ecosystem quality, and resources are mainly produced by the tanyard subsystem. The control and reduction of chromium and ammonia emissions are the critical points to be considered to improve the environmental performance of the process. Technologies available for improved management of chromium tanning were profoundly studied, and improvement actions related to optimized operational conditions and a high exhaustion chrome-tanning process were selected. These actions related to the implementation of internal procedures affected the economy of the process with savings ranging from US dollars 8.63 to US dollars 22.5 for the processing of 1 ton of wet salt hides, meanwhile the global environmental impact was reduced to 44-50%. Moreover, the treatment of wastewaters was considered in two scenarios. Primary treatment presented the largest reduction of the environmental impact of the tanning process, while no significant improvement for the evaluated impact categories was achieved when combining primary and secondary treatments.     

啤酒酿造阶段生命周期清单分析

生命周期评价（LCA）可对产品生命周期各个阶段能量和物质利用以及废物排放进行分析，啤酒生命周期一般包括啤酒酿造、副产品处理、运输销售、回收处理等单元。清单分析包括原材料消耗、能源消耗和环境排放结果分析，环境排放又包括废水排放和废弃物排放。（孙悟）     

Food Waste Management by Life Cycle Assessment of the Food Chain

ABSTRACT: In the past, environmental activities in the food industry used to be focused on meeting the requirements set by authorities on waste and sewage disposal and, more recently, regarding emissions to air. Today environmental issues are considered an essential part of the corporate image in progressive food industries. To avoid sub-optimization, food waste management should involve assessing the environmental impact of the whole food chain. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an ISO-standardized method to assess the environmental impact of a food product. It evaluates the resources used to perform the different activities through the chain of production from raw material to the user step. It also summarizes the emission/waste to air, water, and land from the same activities throughout the chain. These emissions are then related to the major environmental concerns such as eutrophication, acidification, and ecotoxicity, the factors most relevant for the food sector. The food industry uses the LCAs to identify the steps in the food chain that have the largest impact on the environment in order to target the improvement efforts. It is then used to choose among alternatives in the selection of raw materials, packaging material, and other inputs as well as waste management strategies. A large number of food production chains have been assessed by LCAs over the years. This will be exemplified by a comparison of the environmental impact of ecologically grown raw materials to those conventionally grown. Today LCA is often integrated into process and product development, for example, in a project for reduction of water usage and waste valorization in a diversified dairy.     

Life Cycle Assessment of multilayer polymer film used on food packaging field

The environmental impact of a multilayer polymer film, Low Density Poly Ethylene/Polyamide system (LDPE/PA), generally used on food packaging field, was estimated using life cycle assessment (LCA). The aim of the work was to understand how to reduce the environmental pressure from plastic packages for its lower recovery and reuse, which can be improved by developing material recovery or other appropriate recycling technology to improve the cyclic materials flows and recycling ratio. LCA is a tool specifically developed for assessing the overall environmental burden of a product, including the system used for manufacturing it and its end-of-life treatment. This work provides a cradle-to-grave LCA study of a food packaging envelope made with a multilayer polymer film, with two different depth of 70 and 90 micron, and a study of the possibility to utilize a 50% of recycled LDPE and PA polymer pellets in order to reduce the environmental impact. A one square meter envelope is used as functional unit.     

Life cycle assessment for sustainable metropolitan water systems planning

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is useful as an information tool for the examination of alternative future scenarios for strategic planning. Developing a life cycle assessment for a large water and wastewater system involves making methodological decisions about the level of detail which is retained through different stages of the process. In this article we discuss a methodology tailored to strategic planning needs which retains a high degree of model segmentation in order to enhance modeling of a large, complex system. This is illustrated by a case study of Sydney Water, which is Australia's largest water service provider. A prospective LCA was carried out to examine the potential environmental impacts of Sydney Water's total operations in the year 2021. To our knowledge this is the first study to create an LCA model of an integrated water and wastewater system with this degree of complexity. A "base case" system model was constructed to represent current operating assets as augmented and upgraded to 2021. The base case results provided a basis for the comparison of alternative future scenarios and for conclusions to be drawn regarding potential environmental improvements. The scenarios can be roughly classified in two categories: (1) options which improve the environmental performance across all impact categories and (2) options which improve one indicator and worsen others. Overall environmental improvements are achieved in all categories by the scenarios examining increased demand management, energy efficiency, energy generation, and additional energy recovery from biosolids. The scenarios which examined desalination of seawater and the upgrades of major coastal sewage treatment plants to secondary and tertiary treatment produced an improvement in one environmental indicator but deteriorations in all the other impact categories, indicating the environmental tradeoffs within the system. The desalination scenario produced a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to coal-fired electricity generation for a small increase in water supply. Assessment of a greenfield scenario incorporating water demand management, on-site treatment, local irrigation, and centralized biosolids treatment indicates significant environmental improvements are possible relative to the assessment of a conventional system of corresponding scale.     

超高压技术在肉制品加工中的应用

非热加工技术是目前食品加工技术领域的研究热点之一。超高压处理作为一种重要的非热加工技术手段,已受到肉制品加工领域国内外学者的高度关注。文中综述了超高压对肉品中内源酶、微生物和食用品质的影响及作用机制,并对这种技术在肉制品中的应用前景进行了展望,旨在推动超高压加工技术在我国肉制品加工中的应用开发。     

Comparing the impact of high pressure,pulsed electric field and thermal pasteurization on quality attributes of cloudy apple juice using targeted and untargeted analyses

The impact of low-oxygen spiral-filter press technology combined with thermal pasteurization (TP), pulsed electric field (PEF) and high pressure processing (HPP) on cloudy apple juice quality was investigated immediately after the treatments and after 3 weeks of storage at 4 °C. Based on equivalent levels of microbial safety and desired shelf-life, low and high processing intensities were selected: TP (72 °C/15 s; 85 °C/30 s), PEF (12.5 kV/cm, 76.4 kJ/L; 12.3 kV/cm, 132.5 kJ/L), and HPP (400 MPa/3 min; 600 MPa/3 min). High intensity thermal treatment resulted in a bright, yellowish color which was maintained during storage. PPO and POD activities were largely reduced by high intensity PEF and TP yet showed high resistance to HPP. The highest vitamin C content was provided by fresh juice followed by PEF-treated juices. Due to oxidative degradation reactions, vitamin C of all treated samples significantly decreased during storage. Immediately after processing, high cloud stability values were obtained in all samples; however, cloud stability decreased during storage particularly for HPP juices with high residual PME. No significant changes were observed in pH, titratable acidity, organic acid and sugar content which also corresponded to sweet and sour taste. Results from untargeted volatile profiles showed that esters increased after PEF and were better retained after HPP. Contrary to TP treatment where ester degradation reactions occurred together with the formation of off-flavors. Most of the volatiles decreased during storage which could be linked to oxidation and ester hydrolysis reactions.Industrial relevanceBeing one of the most popular fruit juices consumed worldwide, cloudy apple juice can still undergo quality changes such as color degradation, cloud loss (fast sedimentation) and flavor changes during processing and storage. This study evaluates the potential of low-oxygen spiral-filter press in combination with different preservation technologies to obtain a maximal quality of cloudy apple juice. Results showed that high intensity thermal pasteurization can effectively inactivate quality-degrading enzymes, therefore it is useful to obtain an optimal cloudy apple juice product in terms of color and cloud stability. Although HPP has minimal impact on aroma of the juice, shelf-life of the juice may be limited due to incomplete enzyme inactivation. In the case of PEF treatment, thermal effects may contribute to maintain apple juice quality.     

Energy Requirements for Alternative Food Processing Technologies—Principles,Assumptions, and Evaluation of Efficiency

Alternative food preservation technologies include substitutes to heating methods that may have benefits that include reduction of energy consumption. High‐pressure processing (HPP), membrane filtration (MF), pulsed electric fields (PEF), and ultraviolet radiation (UV) are examples of alternative preservation technologies of growing commercial interest. As unit operations these technologies operate in 4 modes of energy transfer: momentum, heat, electromagnetic, or photon transfer. The objectives of this review were: (1) to examine the fundamentals of energy requirements of 4 alternative food processing technologies such as HPP, MF, PEF, UV, and conventional high‐temperature short‐time (HTST) processing, (2) to establish a basis for comparison of energy consumption between or within technologies, and (3) to evaluate specific energy requirements for the 5 technologies to achieve required safety performance in apple juice. Three levels of energy evaluation for each technology including internal energy, applied energy, and consumed energy were reviewed. The comparison of the specific energy for the 5 technologies was based on information published in scientific papers where the inactivation of Escherichia coli in apple juice was explored. Based on the analysis of energy consumption of these technologies it was concluded that MF and UV have the potential to consume less specific energy than HTST, PEF, and HPP. Differences in energy consumption within each group of technologies were also observed and these could be attributed to differences in the systems. The differences in energy consumption within each group of technologies illustrate that there is potential of improvement in most technologies.     

Effects of high pressure processing on antioxidant activity, and total carotenoid content and availability, in vegetables

High pressure processing (HPP) is a relatively new food preservation processing technology that enhances food safety and shelf-life without compromising organoleptic qualities. There has been little research on the impact of HPP on the nutritional and health-promoting properties of foods to date and most of it has focused on juices and purees of fruit such as oranges and tomatoes. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of HPP treatment at two pressure levels (400 MPa; 600 MPa) on antioxidant activity, total carotenoid content and carotenoid availability in vitro, of three commonly consumed vegetables. Antioxidant capacity and total carotenoid content differed between vegetables but were unaffected by HPP treatment. In vitro availability of specific carotenoids also varied greatly between vegetables (3–35%). HPP altered availability of carotenoids according to the type of vegetable treated and processing pressure applied, however the magnitude of the responses was minor.

Industrial relevance

This study provides further scientific evidence of the benefits of high pressure processing in retaining the nutritional attributes of fresh foods. Antioxidant activity and levels of carotenoids before and after exposure to high pressures (up to 600 MPa for 2 min) were essentially no different. Also, the data suggest that micronutrients and phytochemicals in certain vegetables may be made more bioavailable by high pressure treatment. From a nutritional perspective, high pressure processing is an attractive food preservation technology and clearly offers opportunities for horticultural and food processing industries to meet the growing demand from consumers for healthier food products.     

Life Cycle Assessment (ISO 14040) Implementation in Foods of Animal and Plant Origin: Review

The importance of environmental protection has been recently upgraded due to the continuously increasing environmental pollution load. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), wellknown as ISO 14040, has been repeatedly shown to be a useful and powerful tool for assessing the environmental performance of industrial processes, both in the European and American continents as well as in many Asian countries (such as Japan and China). To the best of our knowledge, almost no information is provided in relation to LCA implementation in Africa apart from an article related to Egypt. Although food industries are not considered to be among the most heavily polluting ones, for some like olive oil, wine, dairy, and meat processing, their impact on the environment is a heavy burden. The introduction of LCA aimed at identifying both inputs and outputs to find out which are the most detrimental to the environment in terms of water/energy consumption and solid/liquid and gas releases. In this review, a thorough coverage of literature was made in an attempt to compare the implementation of LCA to a variety of products of both plant and animal origin. It was concluded that there is a high number of subsystems suggested for the same product, thereby, occasionally leading to confusion. An idea toward solving the problem is to proceed to some sort of standardization by means of several generic case studies of LCA implementation, similarly to what had happened in the case of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) implementation in the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, and other countries.     

超高压技术在肉类工业中的应用

超高压(HPP)指超过100Mpa(1Mpa-10个大气压)的压力。在这种高压下生命活动受到极大的抑制。冷杀菌中的超高压杀菌己被认为是目前国际上食品领域的高新技术,可以最大限度保持了食品的营养成分,此技术开始为广大消费者所接受,也己被应用于商业化的生产。本文综述了超高压的概念,在简述HPP的基本原理之上,综合国内外的研究成果,重点介绍了HPP技术对肉及肉制品中蛋白质、脂肪、微生物等方面的作用和影响做了详尽的阐述,为相关人员提供参考,最后展望了HPP在这个领域的应用前景。     

超高压加工技术在食品工业中应用的研究进展

食品超高压处理是一种非热加工技术,通过对整个食品的快速、均匀加压达到对食品杀菌、保藏、改性等目的。与其他处理方式相比,超高压处理具有加工过程污染低、营养物质损失少、风味保持度好等优点。本文通过研究国内外相关文献,主要从超高压加工技术的机理及在食品工业中的应用,包括杀菌、蛋白质改性、贝类脱壳、物质提取等方面综述了食品超高压处理近年来的研究进展。对超高压加工技术在食品工业中的应用进行了归纳分析,总结了该技术在食品工业中存在的问题,并指出了该领域今后的发展方向。     

Potential Utility of High‐Pressure Processing to Address the Risk of Food Allergen Concerns

High‐pressure processing (HPP) technology is a novel, nonthermal processing technology for food. This special processing method can inactivate microorganisms and enzymes in food at room temperature using ultra‐high pressures of above 100 MPa, while the original flavor and nutritional value of the food are maintained, with an extended refrigerated shelf‐life of the food in distribution. In recent years, because of the rising prevalence of food allergies, many researchers have actively sought processing methods that reduce the allergenicity of food allergens. This study describes the effects of the current HPP technology on allergen activity. Our main goal was to provide an overview of the current research achievements of the application of HPP to eliminate the allergenicity of various foods, including legumes, grains, seafood, meat, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables. In addition, the processing parameters, principles, and mechanisms of HPP for allergen destruction are discussed, such as the induction of protein denaturation, the change in protein conformation, allergen removal using the high‐pressure extraction technology, and the promotion of enzymatic hydrolysis to alter the sensitization of the allergens. In the future, the application of HPP technology as a pretreatment step for raw food materials may contribute to the development of food products with low or no allergenic ingredients, which then can effectively reduce the concern for consumers with allergies, reduce the risk of mistaken ingestion, and reduce the overall incidence of allergic reactions from food.     

Improvements to Emergy evaluations by using Life Cycle Assessment

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a widely recognized, multicriteria and standardized tool for environmental assessment of products and processes. As an independent evaluation method, emergy assessment has shown to be a promising and relatively novel tool. The technique has gained wide recognition in the past decade but still faces methodological difficulties which prevent it from being accepted by a broader stakeholder community. This review aims to elucidate the fundamental requirements to possibly improve the Emergy evaluation by using LCA. Despite its capability to compare the amount of resources embodied in production systems, Emergy suffers from its vague accounting procedures and lacks accuracy, reproducibility, and completeness. An improvement of Emergy evaluations can be achieved via (1) technical implementation of Emergy algebra in the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI); (2) selection of consistent Unit Emergy Values (UEVs) as characterization factors for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA); and (3) expansion of the LCI system boundaries to include supporting systems usually considered by Emergy but excluded in LCA (e.g., ecosystem services and human labor). Whereas Emergy rules must be adapted to life-cycle structures, LCA should enlarge its inventory to give Emergy a broader computational framework. The matrix inversion principle used for LCAs is also proposed as an alternative to consistently account for a large number of resource UEVs.