Extrusion Processing of Biomass By-Products for Sustainable Food Production

The sustainability of the food supply chain is gaining increasing attention in the quest to balance economic, environmental, and social dimensions. A key opportunity to enhance food system sustainability is by addressing food waste through upcycling strategies to generate higher value, functional foods. Extrusion is a food manufacturing technology that is emerging as a promising option for the incorporation of various types of biomass by-products, such as fruit and vegetable pomace, brewer’s spent grain, bagasse, and oil press cake. In this chapter, we present an overview of the latest research conducted on incorporating biomass by-products into extruded food products, with an emphasis on the challenges and opportunities associated with this approach. A meta-analysis study was conducted regarding a key challenge for product quality when incorporating by-products, which is the reduction in radial expansion index of expanded snack and breakfast cereal products. To highlight future opportunities, two case studies illustrate successful examples of by-product incorporation for commercial extruded food products, while emerging protein sources from waste-consuming insects were also explored. Overcoming these challenges and leveraging opportunities can contribute to a more sustainable food system through the integration of by-products into value-added extruded foods

EFEITOS ECONÔMICOS DA PANDEMIA DA COVID-19 NA CONSTRUÇÃO CIVIL BRASILEIRA

O setor da construção civil compõe os setores industriais brasileiros. Tal atividade é fundamental para garantir o progresso social através de obras públicas ou privadas. Pensando nisso, objetivou-se abordar o seu comportamento durante o período de 2020 e 2021, marcado pela pandemia do novo coronavírus, COVID-19. Nessa ocasião, a construção civil sofreu dificuldades industriais devido ao fechamento do comércio. No mês de abril de 2020, logo após decretado o estado pandêmico no Brasil e no mundo, a CBIC (Câmara Brasileira da Indústria da Construção) indicou que a produção nacional de aço caiu cerca de 45,00%. Logo, foi considerado o pior momento econômico da pandemia. A partir de maio de 2020, o mercado começou a melhorar quando houve a flexibilização comercial e a construção foi considerada uma atividade essencial. Porém, ainda operando em déficit, os preços dos materiais de construção tenderam ao crescimento. O INCC (Índice Nacional de Custo da Construção) brasileiro de 2020 registrou um aumento de mais de 11,00% e os principais responsáveis por esse ocorrido foram os produtos ligados ao aço. Ainda nesse ambiente, a produção industrial de cimento, aço, tubos, tintas e outros materiais ligados à área construtora, sofreram queda, apresentando, em abril de 2020, apenas 47,40% de sua capacidade, enquanto a média do ano de 2019 foi de 73,28%. Dessa forma, foi demonstrado um cenário de dificuldade para o crescimento da construção civil

Evaluation of a multisensorial system for a rapid preliminary screening of the olive oil chemical compounds in an industrial process

In this study, a sensory system, named BIONOTE, based on gas and liquid analyses was used to analyse the headspace of olive oil samples obtained at the end of the extraction process for a preliminary screening of the volatile and phenolic compounds. Olive oil samples were obtained using different olive paste conditioning systems, including microwave and megasound machines at different processing time. The same olives batch was used for the entire test. BIONOTE showed the ability to discriminate between 64 virgin olive oils originated from different technologies or by using different process parameters, as demonstrated by the partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models calculated. The percentage of correct classification in different conditions are in a range from 92.19% to 100%. In addition, the research shown that the multisensorial system can provide a preliminary estimation of some volatile and phenolic compounds concentrations detected by laboratory analysis. Data analysis has been performed using multivariate data analysis techniques: PLS-DA cross validation via leave one out criterion. Future perspectives are to further develop BIONOTE in order to increase the number of detected chemical compounds and finally to include the mathematical models obtained in the BIONOTE microcontroller for a rapid chemical characterization of olive oil in the mill

PERSPECTIVAS FUTURAS PARA A INCORPORAÇÃO IMOBILIÁRIA NO BRASIL: NOVAS TECNOLOGIAS E TENDÊNCIAS CONSTRUTORAS

Resumo: A incorporação imobiliária é uma atividade com intuito de promover e realizar a construção de um edifício ou conjunto de edifícios para alienação total ou parcial, sendo, seus conceitos, encontrados na Lei 4.591 de 16 de dezembro de 1964, Lei dos Condomínios e Incorporações brasileira. Desde então, com a expansão do mercado imobiliário, a incorporação se tornou um importante viés para a construção civil residencial, envolvendo todas as etapas de uma obra, do projeto a entrega final ao morador. Além desse quesito, ela envolve diversas profissões como corretores de imóveis, advogados, publicitários, contadores entre outros. Devido essa abrangência, estudar incorporação imobiliária se torna um desafio, porém, algo necessário, uma vez que uma grande fatia da economia gerada pela construção civil nacional, vem dela através do lançamento de unidades imobiliárias. Com a crescente tecnologia e novas ferramentas de trabalho, buscar entender as perspectivas futuras para a incorporação imobiliária, se torna uma tarefa primordial. Em um mundo digital onde a praticidade e otimização ganha espaço diariamente, a tendência das incorporadoras é de adaptação, um processo lento e gradual. Tal fato é observado nas aplicações da metodologia BIM (Building Information Modeling), concepção que permite uma visão ampla das fases da construção de um empreendimento, e no anseio pela diminuição da burocracia dos registros de imóveis, dado que o processo é pouco flexível. Palavras-chave: Incorporação imobiliária. Construção civil. Projetos. Tecnologia

Coupling Watersheds, Estuaries and Regional Oceanography through Numerical Modelling in the Western Iberia: Thermohaline Flux Variability at the Ocean-Estuary Interface

The characterisation of the water and properties exchanges at the estuary-ocean interface is a key information to understand the estuarine plume influence on coastal circulation and in the generation of haline fronts. In this work, the largest eight Portuguese estuaries were modelled using the MOHID Water numerical model for the period 2010–2016. Water fluxes and associated properties were computed numerically at each of the estuary mouths. These results served to estimate the tidal prisms, tidal flows and to describe the annual evolution of water temperature and salinity. Those fluxes could serve to improve the land boundary conditions for regional ocean models. Moreover, the numerical analysis of the estuarine fluxes allow for the better characterisation of the studied systems, as two neighbouring estuaries could present very different fluxes and water properties. Where available, modelling results were compared with stations near the estuary mouth

Impact of sound attenuation on ultrasound-driven yield improvements during olive oil extraction.

High frequency ultrasound can enhance olive oil extractability industrially. However, the ultrasound attenuation phenomena and their implications on extractability, are not well understood. This work aims at evaluating the ultrasound attenuation effects on the oil extraction efficiency, while providing deeper insights into the physics behind the ultrasound extraction in a heterogeneous medium. Olives were collected and processed both in Italy and Uruguay during their respective harvest seasons. Sound pressure distribution was characterized in a high frequency ultrasound reactor, carrying 3 kg of water or paste, by using an indirect contact hydrophone device at 0.4 MHz or 2 MHz. A through-transmission ultrasonic technique was applied to determine attenuation profiles and coefficients in paste at the central frequency of each transducer, with various paste to water ratios and reactor sizes. Other ultrasound improvements on extractability were evaluated including reduction of malaxation time (10, 30 min), sonication time (2.5, 5 min) and power level (174, 280 W) without water addition and in a reactor with a 14.5 cm transducer to wall distance. However, no sound pressure levels in paste were detectable beyond 9 cm from the transducer at both frequencies. Among the various effects evaluated, an emission frequency of 0.4 MHz better improved extractability compared to 2 MHz. The attenuation profiles corroborated these findings with attenuation coefficients of 3.9 and 5.3 dB/cm measured near the respective frequencies. Improvements in oil extractability due to increasing sonication time and power level were significant (p < 0.05) also when sonicating beyond 14.5 cm and without water addition. Oil extractability improvements were observed even when sound pressure was undetectable beyond 9 cm from the transducer, suggesting that the standing wave oil trapping effect is not the governing mechanism for separation in high attenuation media for large scale systems

Application of near-infrared spectroscopy and chemometrics for the rapid detection of insect protein adulteration from a simulated matrix

The popularity of insect protein as a food and feed supplement is growing. Protein quality, end use and prices vary considerably between different insect species, which may incentivise insect protein adulteration. Here, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and chemometrics were used to detect the presence of cricket, black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) and mealworm proteins in a simulated complex insect protein mixture. Additionally, BSFL protein powders collected from three commercial sources were investigated to determine whether the NIR-based technology can discriminate the proteins obtained from different companies based on their composition. The proximate analysis suggests compositional protein, fat and chitin differences between insect species. A partial least square (PLS) regression model obtained Q2 values ranging from 0.991 to 0.997 for the predictions of the content of protein mixtures containing BSFL, cricket and mealworm powders mixed at various proportions. The root mean square error of cross-validation (RMSCV) values range from 1.8% to 2.9%, and residual prediction deviation (RPD) values from 10.4 to 17.1 for the adulterated insect protein powders. The accuracy of the prediction model (∼2%) for the adulterated percentages varied depending on the insect species. The NIR spectra could differentiate (Q2 = 0.999) the origin of BSFL protein powders from three different companies and two types of processing (whole meal and defatted samples). Overall, this study established a rapid and low-cost insect protein adulteration monitoring pipeline for the three common insect protein powders. We envisage that NIR can be applied to assess insect adulteration, authentication, and quality control in the emerging insect food and feed industries