Evaluation of the physicochemical properties of dehydrated artisanal cheese during storage

[EN] Artisanal fresh cheese is a type of cheese from Hispanic origin and one of the most consumed; however, its shelf life is short due to of its pH is close to neutrality, high aw and low salt content. The fluidized bed drying was employed as an efficient alternative to fresh cheese; however, in order to achieve the desired shelf life in a product, it is necessary to study different packaging and storage conditions that will depend on the specific characteristics of the product. A design of factorial experiments 23 was adopted, the storage study was carried out for 90 days, studying two qualitative variables: type of packaging and type of atmosphere in the packaging, and one quantitative variable: drying temperature.Calis-Pérez, C.; Domínguez-Niño, A.; Urrea-García, G.; Luna-Solano, G. (2018). Evaluation of the physicochemical properties of dehydrated artisanal cheese during storage. En IDS 2018. 21st International Drying Symposium Proceedings. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 911-918. https://doi.org/10.4995/IDS2018.2018.7609OCS91191

Assessing the Impact of a Vinasse Pilot Plant Scale-Up on the Key Processes of the Ethanol Supply Chain

One of the byproducts generated in the cane sugar production is molasses, which is used for ethanol distillation. However, one of the problems of distilleries is vinasse. Vinasse is highly water pollutant and is dumped untreated in lakes or rivers and damages the environment. The company FALA developed a pilot plant that uses vinasse to produce a type of livestock feed called MD60. In this paper, the impact of the pilot plant’s scale-up in the key processes of the company’s supply chain is analyzed. With the help of a sensitivity analysis, this study finds the values that would allow the company to improve its order fulfillment indicator and to increase profits, assuming an expected demand by the introduction of this new product into the market. The results show that (1) the pilot plant fulfills 32% of the orders, (2) according to the current vinasse storage capacity, it is possible to fulfill up to 77% of the orders by scaling up the pilot plant, (3) to satisfy 100% of the orders, it is necessary to use all the vinasse generated, and (4) the highest profit is reached by processing all the vinasse and by considering the upper sale price

Effect of the Freeze-Drying Process on the Physicochemical and Microbiological Properties of Mexican Kefir Grains

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the properties of Mexican kefir grains (MKG) are affected by the operating parameters used in the freeze-drying process. The factors investigated were the freezing time (3–9 h), freezing temperature (−20 to −80 °C), pressure (0.2–0.8 mbar), and lyophilization time (5–20 h). The maximum range of change and one-way analysis of variance showed that lyophilization time and freezing time significant affects (p < 0.05) the response variables, residual moisture content and water activity, and pressure had a significant effect on the color difference and survival rate of probiotic microorganisms. The best drying conditions were a freezing time of 3 h, a freezing temperature of −20 °C, a pressure of 0.6 mbar, and a lyophilization time of 15 h. Under these conditions, we obtained a product with residual moisture content below 6%, water activity below 0.2, and survival rates above 8.5 log cfu per gram of lactic acid bacteria and above 8.6 log for yeast

Synthesis, Modification, and Characterization of Fe₃O₄@SiO₂-PEI-Dextranase Nanoparticles for Enzymatic Degradation of Dextran in Fermented Mash

During the sugar production process, undesirable compounds such as dextrans are produced and contaminate the flow of the sugar mill, reaching levels in the fluid of more than 10,000 ppm. Dextranase is an enzyme that has different industrial applications, since it catalyzes the hydrolysis of the bonds in random sites of the dextran. Therefore, the enzyme was immobilized using synthesized ferrite magnetic nanoparticles to degrade dextran in the fermented mash, because it is suitable to reuse and has a large surface area to bind dextranase on a solid carrier for easy magnetic separation. The synthesized bare and modified nanoparticles were characterized using SEM, EDS, FTIR, and XRD and confirmed the core–shell silica by increasing the silica composition from 0.2% of bare Fe3O4 NPs to 31.3% of modified Fe3O4 NPs. Ultrasonic treatment reduced the calculated crystal size with Scherer’s equation from 91.3 to 13.5 nm, providing more particles for immobilization. The solvothermal process synthesized ferrite nanoparticles (Fe3O4) and modified them with TEOS and PEI. The obtained immobilization efficiency was 28%. Perhaps it was lower; Fe3O4 degraded almost the same as the free enzyme. The percentage of dextran degradation with free enzymes and immobilized enzymes with Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles was 61 and 52%, respectively