New Trends in Beverage Packaging Systems: A Review

New trends in beverage packaging are focusing on the structure modification of packaging materials and the development of new active and/or intelligent systems, which can interact with the product or its environment, improving the conservation of beverages, such as wine, juice or beer, customer acceptability, and food security. In this paper, the main nutritional and organoleptic degradation processes of beverages, such as oxidative degradation or changes in the aromatic profiles, which influence their color and volatile composition are summarized. Finally, the description of the current situation of beverage packaging materials and new possible, emerging strategies to overcome some of the pending issues are discussed

High-throughput screening of cell-surface topographic interactions

High throughput biomaterials screening largely remains unexplored. The present study was an attempt to explore the area of high throughput as well as high content screening of cell surface topographic interaction. An array of surface topographies called TopoChip was fabricated using a widely used polymer in tissue engineering, Poly (DL-lactic acid). The topographies were subsequently screened for their mitogenic effect on cells. We were able to detect topographic parameters responsible for mitogenic effect of surface topographies

Time-Resolved Photoresponse Measurements of the Electrical Conductivity of the Quasi-Two-Dimensional Organic Superconductor β-(BEDT-TTF) 2

Time-resolved photoresponses in resistance have been measured following the nanosecond laser pulse excitation for the quasi-two-dimensional organic superconductors of hydrogenated and deuterated β-(BEDT-TTF)2I3 [BEDT-TTF = bis-(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene], which show two different superconducting states with high-Tc and low-Tc at temperatures near the critical temperatures. A transient increase of the resistance is induced by photoirradiation at all the temperatures, but a marked temperature dependence of the decay time is observed at temperatures close to the high-Tc phase transition temperature; the decay rate becomes faster and then becomes constant in both compounds, as the temperature decreases across the high-Tc phase transition temperature. The temperature dependence of the photoresponse intensity is different from the one expected from the bolometric effects, indicating the presence of the nonbolometric photoresponse. A possible mechanism explaining the photoresponse of the conductivity is discussed, based on the isotope effect on the photoresponse. A comparison is also made between β-(BEDT-TTF)2I3 and κ-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu[N(CN)2]Br for the transient photoresponse in resistance at temperatures across the metal-superconductor phase transition temperature