Kinetic-thermodynamic study of the oxidative stability of Arbequina olive oils flavored with lemon verbena essential oil

Arbequina extra-virgin olive oils were flavored with lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora) essential oil (0.10.4%, w/w), being evaluated quality parameters (free acidity, peroxide value, UV-extinction coefficients), oxidative stability, antioxidant and total reducing capacity. The kinetic-thermodynamic nature of the lipid oxidation was evaluated by Rancimat (110150 °C). The essential oil addition promoted the antioxidant and total reducing capacities but, unfortunately, increased primary and secondary related quality parameters. Moreover, flavoring decreased the oils' oxidative stability. The kinetic-thermodynamic data showed that unflavored oils had significantly lower oxidation reaction rates (0.0550.06492 h1), more negative temperature coefficient (0.0268°C1), higher temperature acceleration factor (1.852), greater activation energy (82.7 kJ mol1) and frequency factor (10.9 × 109 h1), higher positive enthalpy of activation (79.4 kJmol-1), lower negative entropy of activation (131.8 J mol1K1) and greater positive Gibbs free energy of activation (129.95135.23 kJ mol1), showing that oils oxidation was negatively influenced by the essential oil incorporation. Overall, oxidation had a non-spontaneous, endothermic and endergonic nature. Finally, olive oils could be satisfactorily classified (principal component and linear discriminant analysis) according to the flavoring level, using quality-antioxidant-stability or kinetic-thermodynamic datasets. The latter showed a less predictive performance, although ensuring the full discrimination of unflavored from flavored oils.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support by national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020), to CEB (UIDB/04469/2020) and to BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte. Nuno Rodrigues thanks the National funding by FCT- Foundation for Science and Technology, P.I., through the institutional scientific employment program-contract.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A kinetic-thermodynamic study of the effect of the cultivar/total phenols on the oxidative stability of olive oils

Physicochemical parameters, total phenols contents (TPC), and oxidative stabilities at 120160 °C were evaluated for two monovarietal (Arbequina and Cobrançosa cultivars, cvs.) and one blend extravirgin olive oil, confirming the label quality grade and allowing grouping them according to the different TPC (TPC = 88±7, 112±6 and 144±4mg CAE/kg, for cv. Arbequina, blend and cv. Cobrançosa oils, respectively). The lipid oxidation rate increased with the decrease of the TPC, being Cobrançosa oils (higher TPC) more thermally stable. Kineticthermodynamic parameters were determined using the activated complex/transitionstate theory and the values did not significantly differ for Cobrançosa and blend oils, which had the highest TPC, suggesting a hypothetically threshold saturation of the beneficial effect. Cobrançosa oils had a significant more negative temperature coefficient, higher temperature acceleration factor, greater activation energy and frequency factor, higher positive enthalpy of activation, lower negative entropy of activation, and greater positive Gibbs free energy of activation, probably due to the higher TPC. The results confirmed that lipid oxidation was a nonspontaneous, endothermic, and endergonic process with activated formed complexes structurally more ordered than the reactants. A negative deviation from the Arrhenius behavior was observed for all oils being the superArrhenius behavior more marked for Arbequina oils that had the lowest TPC. Finally, the kineticthermodynamic parameters allowed classifying oils according to the binomial olive cultivar/total phenols level, being the temperature acceleration factor and the Gibbs free energy of activation at 160 °C the most powerful discriminating parameters.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020) and to CEB (UIDB/04469/2020) units and to BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020—Programa Operacional Regional do Norte). Nuno Rodrigues thanks to National funding by FCT- Foundation for Science and Technology, P.I., through the institutional scientific employment program-contract.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pool boiling on modified surfaces using R-123

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Saturated pool boiling of R-123 was investigated for five horizontal copper surfaces modified by different treatments, namely, an emery-polished surface, a fine sandblasted surface, a rough sandblasted surface, an electron beam-enhanced surface, and a sintered surface. Each 40-mm-diameter heating surface formed the upper face of an oxygen-free copper block, electrically heated by embedded cartridge heaters. The experiments were performed from the natural convection regime through nucleate boiling up to the critical heat flux, with both increasing and decreasing heat flux, at 1.01 bar, and additionally at 2 bar and 4 bar for the emery-polished surface. Significant enhancement of heat transfer with increasing surface modification was demonstrated, particularly for the electron beam-enhanced and sintered surfaces. The emery-polished and sandblasted surface results are compared with nucleate boiling correlations and other published data. © 2014 Syed W. Ahmad, John S. Lewis, Ryan J. McGlen, and Tassos G. Karayiannis Published with license by Taylor & Francis

A Lab-Made E-Nose-MOS Device for Assessing the Bacterial Growth in a Solid Culture Medium

The detection and level assessment of microorganisms is a practical quality/contamination indicator of food and water samples. Conventional analytical procedures (e.g., culture methods, immunological techniques, and polymerase chain reactions), while accurate and widely used, are time-consuming, costly, and generate a large amount of waste. Electronic noses (E-noses), combined with chemometrics, provide a direct, green, and non-invasive assessment of the volatile fraction without the need for sample pre-treatments. The unique olfactory fingerprint generated during each microorganism’s growth can be a vehicle for its detection using gas sensors. A lab-made E-nose, comprising metal oxide semiconductor sensors was applied, to analyze solid medium containing Gram-positive (Enterococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus aureus) or Gram-negative (Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) bacteria. The electrical-resistance signals generated by the E-nose coupled with linear discriminant analysis allowed the discrimination of the four bacteria (90% of correct classifications for leave-one-out cross-validation). Furthermore, multiple linear regression models were also established allowing quantifying the number of colony-forming units (CFU) (0.9428 ≤ R2 ≤ 0.9946), with maximum root mean square errors lower than 4 CFU. Overall, the E-nose showed to be a powerful qualitative–quantitative device for bacteria preliminary analysis, being envisaged its possible application in solid food matrices