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To develop novel concepts and methods for flexible and sustainable food processing in Norway with the aim of coping with small volume series and high biological variation in existing raw materials, to enable increased raw materials exploitation for use in food products, and to increase profitability. This will enable the Norwegian food indus-try to meet its key long-term challenges related to the sustainability of raw materials exploitation and reductions in loss (edible)/waste (inedible) in a life-cycle context.

To develop novel concepts and methods for flexible and sustainable food processing in Norway with the aim of coping with small volume series and high biological variation in existing raw materials, to enable increased raw materials exploitation for use in food products, and to increase profitability. This will enable the Norwegian food indus-try to meet its key long-term challenges related to the sustainability of raw materials exploitation and reductions in loss (edible)/waste (inedible) in a life-cycle context.

Stand-alone and portable lab-on-chips (LOC) can be obtained by exploiting capillary flow in porous media. Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) platforms obtained through powder-based three-dimensional (3D) printing are appropriate for capillarity-driven LOCs. However, fluid flow in such platforms needs to be characterized well. For this purpose, a 3D pore network (PN) was extracted from high-resolution μCT images of printed PMMA through a watershed algorithm and a PN model was developed with the final goal of characterizing material permeability. The effect of all parameters involved in the PN extraction and modeling was investigated. The study focused in particular on the effect of the number of seeds for the watershed segmentation, pore sphericity, and pore-to-pore channel shape that was modeled as a bicylindrical or biconical object. The results proved that all PN extraction and modeling parameters influenced the permeability, which was found to be lower the higher the number of seeds and when using sphericity and biconical channels. Eventually, the Calinski-Harabasz index value was used to identify the optimal number of watershed seeds. ispartof: PHYSICAL REVIEW E vol:99 issue:3 ispartof: location:United States status: Published online

A good understanding of the microstructural changes due to dehydration is critical to optimize fruit drying processes. By using X-ray micro-computed tomography, we quantified the changes in porosity, pore diameter, cell sphericity, cell diameter and cell elongation of apple parenchyma tissue during multiple convective drying scenarios: natural convection (air speed = 0.05 m s−1), forced convection (air speed = 0.5 m s−1) and coupled irradiation-convective drying (air speed = 0.05 m s−1 with radiation heating). Drying conditions affected the microstructure noticeably, in particular the formation of an elevated-porosity layer (tissue region where the porosity was higher than the initial porosity) and a deformed-cell layer (tissue region where the sphericity of the cells was lower than 0.75) near the sample surface. Using the combination of Eulerian and Lagrangian approaches, we linked the formation of the aforementioned layers to bulk shrinkage and deformation of individual cells. Forced convective drying resulted in a more porous structure and a higher degree of cell deformation compared to the other drying cases. Meanwhile, the coupled irradiation-convective drying induced the largest bulk shrinkage. The latter was caused by a large reduction in pore volume and the formation of large cell clusters in the deformed-cell layer., RSC Advances, 9 (19), ISSN:2046-2069

The study was conducted to investigate the impact of curing conditions and harvesting stageson the drying quality of onion bulbs. The onion bulbs (Bombay Red cultivar) were harvested at three harvesting stages (early, optimum, and late maturity) and cured at three different temperatures (30, 40 and 50 oC) and relative humidity (30, 50 and 70%). The results revealed that curing temperature, RH, and maturity stage had significant effects on all measuredattributesexcept total soluble solids.

ispartof: Proeftuinnieuws vol:4 pages:14-15 status: published

‘Braeburn’ apples (Malus × domestica Borkh.) are highly susceptible to develop storage disorders when kept in long term CA storage. Due to limited gas transport through the fruit tissue, local oxygen deficiencies may occur, leading to internal brown spots (“‘Braeburn’ browning disorder”). The pore structure of the tissues has been shown to be a major contributing factor to the gas transport properties of fruit tissues. However, this was based on analysis of relatively small samples of fruit tissue. This research aimed to visualize the complete porous microstructure of whole ‘Braeburn’ apples as a means to better understand how the pore network will affect the internal gas concentrations and the development of storage defects. High resolution X-ray CT images of 5 ‘Braeburn’ apples were made at a voxel resolution of 45 micron for a non-destructive pore structure analysis. These images were segmented into cell and pore volumes and based on image analysis of the pore structure, a 3D geometrical description of the apple anatomy was formulated. It is shown that the pore space of the ovary and the hypanthium of the fruit were completely disconnected. The hypanthium was divided into a high and low porosity zone. The average porosity of the apples was 21.81 ± 2.78%. The highly porous zone of the hypanthium had an average porosity of 26.10 ± 2.46% with a well-connected pore network, while the less porous zone only had 4.30 ± 0.67% of air spaces. Furthermore, the high porosity zone of the hypanthium, which represents on average 77.90 ± 5.45% of the apple volume, contained 93.39 ± 3.12% of the pore volume. The ovary had the highest porosity with a value of 43.66 ± 4.85%, seed lobes included. Radial porosity profiles were calculated showing a highly varying porosity from skin to ovary, with minimal values in the region around the ovary. It is suggested that the low porosity of certain parts of the ‘Braeburn’ apple is causing a barrier for gas transport and is therefore directly related to the occurrence of brown spots during the long term CA storage of these apples. ispartof: Acta Horticulturae ispartof: XII International Controlled & Modified Atmosphere research Conference, CAMA 2017 location:Warsaw, Poland date:18 Jun - 22 Jun 2017 status: published

BACKGROUND: Particle size is one of the most important properties affecting the driftability and behaviour of dust particles abraded from pesticide dressed seeds during sowing. Three particle sizing techniques were used determine the particle size distribution of dust abraded fromseeds fromsix different species. RESULTS: Important differences in dust particle size distribution between species were observed with the finest dust for rapeseed and the coarsest dust for barley. Wet laser diffraction and sonic sieving particle size results correlated well while micro-CT is able to deliver three-dimensional information and additional physical particle properties (shape, porosity). CONCLUSION: All particle sizing techniques have their (dis)advantages and none of them is able to perfectly describe the real size distribution of non-spherical particles. The particle size information gathered can be used in dust drift prediction models, risk assessment tools and will help to better understand the dust drift phenomenon. ispartof: Pest Management Science vol:73 issue:7 pages:1310-1321 ispartof: location:ENGLAND, London status: published