Cold Chain Energy Analysis for Sustainable Food and Beverage Supply

Perishable goods, such as chilled and frozen foods, have a short shelf life and high sensitivity to their surrounding environment (e.g., temperature, humidity, and light intensity). For this reason, they must be distributed within a specific time and require special equipment and facilities (e.g., refrigeration and dehumidification systems) throughout the entire chain from farm to fork to ensure slow deterioration and to deliver safe and high-quality products to consumers. Cold chains can last for short periods, such as a few hours, or for several months or even years (e.g., frozen food products) depending on the product and the target market. A huge amount of energy is required to preserve quality by maintaining the desired temperature level over time. The required energy is also affected by inventory management policies (e.g., warehouse filling levels affect the cooling demand per unit of a product) and the behavior of the operators (e.g., number and duration of door openings). Furthermore, waste entails the loss of energy and other resources consumed for processing and storing these products. The aim of the present study is to propose a quantitative approach in order to map the energy flows throughout the cold chain in the food and beverage sector and to evaluate the overall energy performance. The results of the energy flow mapping give decisionmakers insights into the minimum energy required by the cold chain and allow them to prioritize energy efficiency measures by detecting the most energy consuming stages of the cold chain. The implementation of a holistic approach, shifting from a single-company perspective to chain assessment, leads to a global optimum and to an increased implementation rate of energy efficiency measures due to the reduced barriers perceived by different actors of the cold chain

Assessment of Energy Efficiency Measures in Food Cold Supply Chains: A Dairy Industry Case Study

The quality of human nutrition has acquired significant improvements thanks to the opportunity to store food in suitable temperature conditions. Refrigeration has allowed the slowing of chemical and biological degradation and hence the waste of foodstuff, but at the same time increases energy consumption. These effects impact the environment and the sustainability performance of the cold chain, and drive consumers’ choices. The stakeholders of the chain are, therefore, constantly looking for improvement actions to reduce environmental impacts. This paper aims to provide a methodology for prioritizing and assessing the energy efficiency measures for cold chains in terms of quality losses and specific energy consumption, distinguishing between technological, maintenance, and managerial opportunities. This analysis is based on the cold supply chain tool, developed under the H2020 project ICCEE (“Improving Cold Chain Energy Efficiency”) which focuses on a holistic approach, not looking only at the individual stages of the cold chain. Furthermore, an economic evaluation has been proposed considering cost savings and the investment needed

Supply chain finance for ameliorating and deteriorating products: a systematic literature review

Ameliorating and deteriorating products, or, more generally, items that change value over time, present a high sensitiveness to the surrounding environment (e.g., temperature, humidity, and light intensity). For this reason, they should be properly stored along the supply chain to guarantee the desired quality to the consumers. Specifically, ameliorating items face an increase in value if there are stored for longer periods, which can lead to higher selling price. At the same time, the costumers’ demand is sensitive to the price (i.e., the higher the selling price the lower the final demand), sensitiveness that is related to the quality of the products (i.e., lower sensitiveness for high-quality products). On the contrary, deteriorating items lose quality and value over time which result in revenue losses due to lost sales or reduced selling price. Since these products need to be properly stored (i.e., usually in temperature- and humidity-controlled warehouses) the holding costs, which comprise also the energy costs, may be particularly relevant impacting on the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of the supply chain. Furthermore, due to the recent economic crisis, companies (especially, small and medium enterprises) face payment difficulties of customers and high volatility of resources prices. This increases the risk of insolvency and on the other hand the financing needs. In this context, supply chain finance emerged as a mean for efficiency by coordinating the financial flow and providing a set of financial schemes aiming at optimizing accounts payable and receivable along the supply chain. The aim of the present study is thus to investigate through a systematic literature review the two main themes presented (i.e., inventory management models for products that change value over time, and financial techniques and strategies to support companies in inventory management) to understand if any financial technique has been studied for supporting the management of this class of products and to verify the existing literature gap

Grundversorgung: Der Weg aus der Krise führt auch über die MPA

Die meisten Hausärzte und Hausärztinnen in der Schweiz sind dauerhaft überlastet. Um zusätzliche Kapazitäten zu schaffen, sind ihre Leistungen auf mehr Schultern zu verteilen und die Betreuung im (Praxis-)Team zu verstärken. Besonders dafür geeignet ist die Begleitung von chronisch kranken Patienten durch die Medizinische Praxisassistentin. Das Problem: Der Arzt kann diese Leistungen nicht abrechnen. Dies ist so rasch wie möglich zu ändern, damit die MPA endlich den Wert erhält, den sie längst verdient

Detection of Earth-like Planets Using Apodized Telescopes

The mission of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) is to find Earth-like planets orbiting other stars and characterize the atmospheres of these planets using spectroscopy. Because of the enormous brightness ratio between the star and the reflected light from the planet, techniques must be found to reduce the brightness of the star. The current favorite approach to doing this is with interferometry: interfering the light from two or more separated telescopes with a $\pi$ phase shift, nulling out the starlight. While this technique can, in principle, achieve the required dynamic range, building a space interferometer that has the necessary characteristics poses immense technical difficulties. In this paper, we suggest a much simpler approach to achieving the required dynamic range. By simply adjusting the transmissive shape of a telescope aperture, the intensity in large regions around the stellar image can be reduced nearly to zero. This approach could lead to construction of a TPF using conventional technologies, requiring space optics on a much smaller scale than the current TPF approach.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, 9 pages, 6 figure

Smoldering Combustion In Porous Media Kinetic Models For Numerical Simulations

Tecnologias avançadas para a geração de energia usando combustíveis não convencionais xisto betuminoso e seu semi-coque, areias betuminosas, petróleo extra-pesado e biomassa proveniente de resíduos sólidos urbanos e de lodo de esgoto - têm em comum processos termoquímicos compostos de complexas reações químicas. Este trabalho trata da formulação e otimização de mecanismos químicos normalmente envolvidos na pirólise do xisto betuminoso e na combustão do xisto betuminoso e seu semi-coque. Problemas inversos (usando o algoritmo de Levenberg-Marquardt) foram empregados para minimizar o erro entre os valores estimados e os dados de termogravimétria para os mecanismos de reação de 3 passos para a pirólise do xisto betuminos, e mecanismos de 4 e 3 passos para o xisto betuminoso e seu semi-coque, respectivamente. Os parâmetros cinéticos, tais como ordem de reação, fator pré-exponencial, energia de ativação e os coeficientes estequiométricos que afetam a secagem, as reações de oxidação, pirólise e descarbonatação foram estimadas com sucesso. Além disso, os erros estatísticos e residuais foram avaliados, resultando em um valor razoável para todas as estimativas e o mecanismo cinético proposto e estimado para a combustão do semi-coque foi aplicado em um código em meios porosos. Um estudo paramétrico entre o perfil de temperatura e a velocidade do ar, e o perfil de temperatura e a concentração de carbono fixo foi desenvolvido. Este estudo mostra que o perfil de temperatura é extremamente influenciado por estes parâmetros, confirmando que a propagação da frente é controlada pela injeção de O2. Palavras-chave: Xisto Betuminoso, Semi-Coque, Pirólise, Combustão, Estimação de Parâmetros, Problemas Inversos, Levenberg-Marquardt, Meios Porosos

Enzymatic hydrolysis of raw and pre-treated Eucalyptus.

Ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass (LCB), such as agricultural and forest residues, is known as the second generation (2G) ethanol. Carbohydrate fractions in LCB (cellulose and hemicellulose) are not readily available for microbial fermentation and they need to be released by additional pre-treatment and hydrolysis operations. This process is intrinsically more difficult and costly. In this study the efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis of the species Eucalyptus urophylla and the hybrid E. urophylla x E. grandis, submitted or not to alkaline pre-treatment with green liquor, has been evaluated. The hydrolysis was carried out with a enzymatic cocktail containing aggressive cellulases, high level of ?-glucosidases and hemicellulase at 6% (g enzyme/g solid), pH 5.0, 50 g.L-1 solids for 72 h, 45 °C and 250 rpm. The pre-treatment promoted disruption of the cellular structure of the samples, allowing easier accessibility for the enzymes and demonstrating higher effectiveness of enzymatic hydrolysis. The maximum efficiency of hydrolysis (81.3%) was observed for pretreated E. urophylla.SOLABIAA

Understanding olive oil stability using filtration and high hydrostatic pressure

Veiled extra virgin olive oil (VEVOO) is very attractive on the global market. A study was performed to highlight the role of different amounts of water and microorganisms on the evolution of VEVOO quality during storage, using the selective effects of the application of individual or combined filtration and high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) treatments. Four oil processing trials were carried out in four replicates, resulting in a full factorial design with two independent fixed factors: filtration and HPP treatments. The turbidity of all the olive oil samples was characterized. Furthermore, all the olive oil samples were analysed for legal parameters, volatile organic compounds and phenolic compounds during the storage tests. The microbial contamination in the presence of a high level of water activity (>0.6 Aw) was related to the formation of volatile aroma compounds, which were responsible for the \u201cfusty\u201d sensory defect. Furthermore, high water activity values were related to an increase in the hydrolytic degradation rate of the phenolic compounds. The oil turbidity has to be planned and controlled, starting from adjustment of the water content and application of good manufacturing practices

Study of the stability of dried tomato halves during shelf-life to minimise oxidative damage

Optimal operating conditions for storage of dried tomato halves were investigated to obtain decreased oxidative damage, evaluated in terms of colour variation, combined with microbial stability of the product, ie inhibition of growth of eumycetes. Experiments were planned using a saturated factorial design. Variables studied were the moisture content of dried tomato halves in the range 10-60%, temperature in the range 5-30 degreesC and storage time in the range 1-38 days. Eighteen storage experiments were carried out in the dark under vacuum at the storage conditions indicated by the experimental design. At the end of each experiment, surface colour was measured by a tristimulus colorimeter, and growth of eumycetes was evidenced by olfactory and visual perception, followed by qualitative microbial analysis. Eumycetes were present in all stored products, except that at 10% moisture, and, generally speaking, storage conditions did not allow micro-organisms to grow. From isoresponse curves the optimal region for storage to minimise oxidative damage was extrapolated, which was represented by residual moisture values between 20 and 40% and less than or equal to 18 degreesC storage temperature, with a minimum point of colour variation at approximately 30% moisture content and 10 degreesC