Effects of Thickness Fraction Process on Physicochemical Properties, Cooking Qualities, and Sensory Characteristics of Long-Grain Rice Samples

A process of removing thinner kernels of rough rice, i.e., thickness fraction process, has been suggested as a method for increasing milling yields in the rice industry. This study aimed at determining whether physicochemical properties, cooking qualities, and sensory characteristics of rice samples could be changed by the addition of a thickness fraction into the rice process stream. Each of four long-grain rice cultivar lots was assigned into two groups: unfractionated and thickness-fractionated. For the thickness-fractionated group, thin rice kernels (<1.9 mm) of rough rice were discarded from unfractionated rice samples. Unfractionated and thickness-fractionated rice samples were compared with respect to physicochemical properties, cooking qualities, and sensory characteristics. The results showed that the removal of such thin kernels decreased the breakage and chalkiness rates and increased head rice yields. Fractionated rice samples exhibited lower amylose contents and crude protein contents but higher gelatinization temperatures than unfractionated rice samples. While the optimum cooking duration and width–expansion ratios of thickness-fractionated rice samples were higher than those of unfractionated ones, there was a negligible impact of the thickness fraction process on sensory characteristics of long-grain rice samples. In conclusion, the thickness fraction process affects physicochemical properties and cooking qualities more than the sensory characteristics of rice samples.

The SMRI-NIRS technology Part 2: Improving factory performance

The Sugar Milling Research Institute NPC (SMRI) has developed a Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) analytical method for use in sugarcane factories, initially for use in South Africa, in place of conventional analytical methods. Details on the development, validation and benefit of the SMRI-NIRS analytical method are reported in Part 1 of this paper (Walford 2019). By 2019 all South African sugarcane processing factories had discontinued conventional analyses in favour of the SMRI-NIRS method for factory control purposes. The SMRI-NIRS method predicts analytical results of dry solids, polarimetric sugar, sucrose (HPLC), glucose, fructose, conductivity ash contents as well as ICUMSA colour and pH value from a single NIRS scan of any suitably diluted sugarcane process stream sample. Final molasses dry solids can also be predicted. In addition to improved laboratory output, the additional analytical data can be used to improve factory performance. This paper gives examples of where the SMRI-NIRS technology, the analytical method and the associated decision-support toolkits, have been used in South African factories, to improve factory sucrose recoveries and the reporting of factory performance figures.

Hierarchical Design of Extraction-distillation Processes using Short-cut Apparatus Models with Piece-wise Linearized Thermodynamics

A hierarchical optimization approach for the conceptual design of extraction-distillation processes is presented. The approach includes the solvent selection and flowsheet synthesis using pinch-based short-cut apparatus models which take into account of the material balances and piece-wise linearized thermody- namics (MLT models) and is limited to ternary systems. MLT models enable fast and robust identification of feasible flowsheet-solvent combinations and op- timization thereof. Performant solvents are found by assessing process stream tables. Promising solvent-flowsheet combinations are evaluated using flowsheet simulation with detailed models, whereby the MLT results are in good agree- ment with the results of the detailed models. The approach is presented alongan example of the separation of acetic acid and water.

Location based Continuous Query Processing over Geo-streaming Data

In recent years, many data-intensive and location based applications have emerged that need to process stream data in applications such as network monitoring, telecommunications data management, and sensor networks. Unlike regular queries, a continuous query exists for certain period of time and need to be continuously processed during this time. The algorithms used for data processing for the traditional database systems are not suited to tackle complex and various continuous queries over dynamic streaming data. The indexing for finite queries is preferred to indexing on infinite data to avoid expensive operations of index maintenance. Previous related work focused on moving queries on static objects or static queries on moving object. But now-a-days queries as well as objects are dynamic. So, hybrid indexing for queries significantly reduces the space costs and scales well with the increasing data. To deal with the speed of unbounded data, it is necessary to use data parallelism in query processing. The data parallelism in query processing offers better performance, availability and scalability.

Plasma Catalysis: A Review of the Interdisciplinary Challenges Faced : Realising the potential of plasma catalysis on a commercial scale

The work presented here introduces the topic of plasma catalysis through selected work in scientific literature and commercial applications, as well as identifying some of the key challenges faced when attempting to utilise non-thermal atmospheric plasma catalysis across multidisciplinary boundaries including those of physics, chemistry and electrical engineering. Plasma can be generated by different methods at many energy levels and can initiate chemical reactions; the main challenges are to selectively initiate desirable reactions either within a process stream or at the surface of a material. The material, which may have intrinsic catalytic properties, the nature of the process gas and the geometry of the reactor will influence the products formed. Previous work has shown that the mechanism for plasma-initiated reactions can be different to that occurring from more traditional thermally stimulated reactions, which opens up possibilities of using different catalytic materials to optimise the reaction rate and product speciation. In addition, the influence of a plasma at the surface of a material and the effects that can be introduced will be discussed.