Quality enhancement of the abundant under‐valued crustacean,lobster krill (Munida spp.), during its chilled storage

Lobster krill (Munida genus) represents an under‐valued crustacean frequently caught on European fishing banks. In this work, its sensory, microbiological and biochemical qualities were evaluated during chilled storage. Additionally, the effects of a prestorage antimelanosic treatment consisting of soaking in sodium metabisulphite (SMB) solutions at two different concentrations (0.25% and 0.75%) were also studied. SMB prestorage treatment provided lobster specimens that still exhibited acceptable sensory quality after 10 days of storage, while control specimens were unacceptable at that time. SMB treatment also resulted in a significant (P < 0.05) inhibition of microbial growth, mainly of Enterobacteriaceae, psychrotrophes and proteolytic bacteria. Low lipid oxidation levels were observed for all batches; however, a significantly higher (P < 0.05) retention of polyunsaturated fatty acids was found in SMB‐treated lobster, especially in the 0.75% SMB batch. The results presented here open the way to the potential commercialisation of currently under‐utilised lobster krill as a chilled product.     

Residual strain in cadmium telluride/gallium arsenide (001) heterostructures as a function of temperature

Optical studies of residual strain in cadmium telluride (CdTe) films grown using molecular beam epitaxy on gallium arsenide (GaAs) substrate have been performed using photoreflectance techniques. Measurements have been conducted to determine the fundamental transition energy, heavy-hole and light-hole transition energy critical-point parameters in a range of temperatures between 12 and 300 K. There are problems inherent in the fabrication of optoelectronic devices using high-quality CdTe films, due to strain effects resulting from both the lattice mismatch (CdTe: 14.6%) and the thermal expansion coefficient difference. The CdTe film exhibits compressive stress causing valence-band splitting for light and heavy holes. We have used different models to fit the obtained experimental data and, although the critical thickness for the CdTe has been surpassed, the strain due to the lattice mismatch is still significant. However, the strain due to the thermal expansion is dominant. We have found that the fundamental transition energy, E₀, is affected by the compressive strain and the characteristic values are smaller than those reported. In addition, the total strain is compressive for the full measured range, since the strain due to the lattice mismatch is one order of magnitude higher than that calculated from the thermal expansion.     

Development of green extraction process to produce antioxidant-rich extracts from purple coneflower

The present study was conducted to develop subcritical water extraction (SWE) of Echinacea purpurea flowers. The influence of temperature and extraction time on quality of extracts considering total phenols content, total flavonoids content, antioxidant capacity and extraction yield, was determined. Optimized extraction parameters for maximised investigated responses were as follows: 147.56 °C and 8.43 min. The experimental values agreed with the values predicted, thus indicating the adequacy of central composite experimental design for modelling the SWE of bioactive compounds from E. purpurea. Results of the study also highlighted the potential application of E. purpurea subcritical water extracts as a source of valuable bioactive compounds.     

Excited-state absorption of meso-tetrasulfonatophenyl porphyrin: Effects of pH and micelles

The influence of the environment on the excited state transitions of meso-tetrakis(p-sulfonatophenyl) porphyrin (TPPS) is reported. TPPS was investigated in protonated and non-protonated forms, and in the presence of the cationic cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) micelles. The singlet excited-state absorption spectra were measured by using the white-light continuum Z-scan technique and the triplet–triplet absorption spectra were acquired employing an association of laser flash photolysis and Z-scan techniques. Our results show that the perseveration of the molecular symmetry, upon excitation, depends on the state of multiplicity of the molecules, as well as on the environment and structural characteristics of the porphyrin. Additionally, it was observed that for excited molecules, the ring distortion caused by the protonation of porphyrin ring has great influence on the changes observed for the symmetry and vibronic structure. The results clearly show that the porphyrin investigated is a promising candidate for optical limiting applications for all investigated environments.     

Effect of chitosan on Bacillus cereus inhibition and quality of cooked rice during storage

Improper cooling of cooked rice at an inappropriate temperature or leaving cooked rice at room temperature can cause food poisoning attributed to Bacillus cereus. Natural food preservative of either squid or crab polymer chitosan solution was added to examine their antibacterial properties against Bacillus cereus in cooked rice during storage at 37 and 4 °C. Both types of chitosan could retard the growth of B. cereus and total aerobic counts in cooked rice stored at 37 °C up to 1 day. In addition, the effect of chitosans on the physical and textural properties of cooked rice during storage was studied. Both chitosans slightly increased the moisture content of cooked rice. However, chitosans had no effect on the whiteness and hardness of cooked rice during storage (P > 0.05). Therefore, both chitosans have a potential to be used as food preservative for cooked rice with no negative effects on rice quality.     

Optical properties and conductivity of PEDOT:PSS films treated by polyethylenimine solution for organic solar cells

We report on conductivity and optical property of three different types of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) films [pristine PH1000 film (PH1000-p), with 5 wt.% ethylene glycol additive (PH1000-EG) and with sulfuric acid post-treatment (PH1000-SA)] before and after polyethylenimine (PEI) treatment. The PEI is found to decrease the conductivity of all the PEDOT:PSS films. The processing solvent of 2-methoxyethanol is found to significantly enhance the conductivity of PH1000-p from 1.1 up to 744 S/cm while the processing solvent of isopropanol or water does not change the conductivity of PH1000-p much. As for the optical properties, the PEI treatment slightly changes the transmittance and reflectance of PH1000-p and PH1000-EG films, while the PEI leads to an substantial increase of the absorptance in the spectral region of 400–1100 nm of the PH1000-SA films. Though the optical property and conductivity of the three different types of PEDOT:PSS films vary with the PEI treatment, the treated PEDOT:PSS films exhibit similar low work function. We demonstrate solar cells with a simple device structure of glass/low-WF PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:ICBA/high-WF PEDOT:PSS cells that exhibit good performance with open-circuit voltage of 0.82 V and fill factor up to 0.62 under 100 mW/cm² white light illumination.     

Research on the effects of surface modification of ceramic powder on cure performance during digital light processing (DLP)

Digital light processing (DLP) is one of the most important additive manufacture technologies to fabricate ceramic parts with complex geometries. Compared with pure photosensitive resin, the cure performance of ceramic suspensions is obviously different due to the optical property change after the addition of ceramic powders. In this paper, a unique oxidation process was used to modify the optical properties of nitride powders including AlN and Si₃N₄. The properties of oxidized ceramics were investigated and the cure performance of ceramic suspensions was then characterized. The effect of oxidation time on cure performance was evaluated. The results showed that for AlN, oxidation process leads to the smaller cure depth and smaller excess cure width as compared with non-oxidized AlN and for Si₃N₄, oxidation process leads to the larger cure depth and larger excess cure width as compared with non-oxidized Si₃N₄, indicating that both refractive index and light absorbance of ceramic powders have obvious effects on cure behaviors. Additionally, the cure behavior of oxidized ceramic suspension in this study shows that the relationship of cure depth vs. incident energy agrees well with Beer- Lambert model, but the excess cure width vs. incident energy is not consistent with quasi Beer-Lambert model due to the nature of digital micromirror device (DMD).     

Synthesis of Long-Chain β-Lactones and Their Antibacterial Activities against Pathogenic Mycobacteria

In the quest for new antibacterial agents, a series of novel long- and medium-chain mono- and disubstituted β-lactones was developed. Their activity against three pathogenic mycobacteria—M. abscessus, M. marinum, and M. tuberculosis—was assessed by the resazurin microtiter assay (REMA). Among the 16 β-lactones synthesized, only 3-hexadecyloxetan-2-one (VM005) exhibited promising activity against M. abscessus, whereas most of the β-lactones showed interesting activities against M. marinum, similar to that of the classical antibiotic, isoniazid. Regarding M. tuberculosis, six compounds were found to be active against this mycobacterium, with β-lactone VM008 [trans-(Z)-3-(hexadec-7-en-1-yl)-4-propyloxetan-2-one] being the best growth inhibitor. The promising antibacterial activities of the best compounds in this series suggest that these molecules may serve as leads for the development of much more efficient antimycobacterial agents.