Opportunities and Challenges in Application of Forward Osmosis in Food Processing

Food processing and preservation technologies must maintain the fresh-like characteristics of food while providing an acceptable and convenient shelf life as well as assuring safety and nutritional value. Besides, the consumers’ demand for the highest quality convenience foods in terms of natural flavor and taste, free from additives and preservatives necessitated the development of a number of membrane-based non-thermal approaches to the concentration of liquid foods, of which forward osmosis has proven to be the most valuable one. A series of recent publications in scientific journals have demonstrated novel and diverse uses of this technology for food processing, desalination, pharmaceuticals as well as for power generation. Its novel features, which include the concentration of liquid foods at ambient temperature and pressure without significant fouling of membrane, made the technology commercially attractive. This review aims to identify the opportunities and challenges associated with this technology. At the same time, it presents a comprehensive account of recent advances in forward osmosis technology as related to the major issues of concern in its rapidly growing applications in food processing such as concentration of fruit and vegetable juices (grape, pineapple, red raspberry, orange, and tomato juice and red radish juice) and natural food colorants (anthocyanin and betalains extracts). Several vibrant and vital issues such as recent developments in the forward osmosis membrane and concentration polarization aspects have been also addressed. The asymmetric membrane used for forward osmosis poses newer challenges to account both external and internal concentration polarization leading to significant reduction in flux. The recent advances and developments in forward osmosis membrane processes, mechanism of water transport, characteristics of draw solution and membranes as well as applications of forward osmosis in food processing have been discussed.     

Room-temperature Ferroelectricity and Ferromagnetism in Double Perovskite Bi2CoMnO6 Ceramics Synthesized Using Sol–Gel Combustion Technique

Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetism - This paper reports the coexistence of room-temperature ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism in double perovskite Bi2CoMnO6 ceramics synthesized by...     

Manganese recovery from secondary resources: a green process for carbothermal reduction and leaching of manganese bearing hazardous waste

During the hydrometallurgical extraction of zinc by electrowinning process, a hazardous solid waste called anode mud is generated. It contains large quantity of manganese oxides (55-80%) and lead dioxide (6-16%). Due to the presence of a large quantity of lead, the anode mud waste is considered hazardous and has to be disposed of in secure landfills, which is costly, wastes available manganese and valuable land resources. For recovery of manganese content of anode mud, a process comprising of carbothermal treatment using low density oil (LDO) followed by sulphuric acid leaching is developed.     

Thermal and dc Conductivity Behavior of Fly Ash Filled Polyaniline Composites

In this paper temperature dependence of dc conductivity (σ_dc) of emeraldine base form of polyaniline (PANI) and fly ash filled PANI are presented. Samples were prepared by in situ polymerization of aniline using ammonium persulphate as an oxidant and hydrochloric acid as dopant. Fly ash filled PANI composites were prepared by adding 3 gms of fly ash. Thermal characteristics of samples were measured using differential scanning calorimetry. The dc conductivity (σ_dc) of fly ash filled PANI was found to be on the order of 1.63 × 10^?11 s/cm at room temperature, which was lower than that of pure PANI. The activation energies calculated from σ_dc for PANI and the PANI 3 fly ash system were 1.35 and 1.16 eV, respectively. It was found that addition of fly ash to PANI drastically decreased the enthalpy from 2259.2 to 196.6 mJ. the endothermic peak due to the glass transition temperature shifted from 99.8 to 94.6°C. This was attributed to the change in the morphology of the composites on adding fly ash, as observed in the scanning electron micrographs.     

Buckling analysis of anisotropic variable-curvature panels and shells

A buckling formulation for anisotropic variable-curvature panels is presented in this paper. The variable-curvature panel is assumed to consist of two or more panels of constant curvature where each panel may have a different curvature. Bezier functions are used as Ritz functions. Displacement (C⁰), and slope (C¹) continuities between segments are imposed by manipulation of the Bezier control points. A first-order shear-deformation theory is used in the buckling formulation. Results obtained from the present formulation are compared with those from finite element simulations and are found to be in good agreement.