(1)H NMR spectroscopy and chemometrics evaluation of non-thermal processing of orange juice.

This study evaluated the effect of atmospheric cold plasma and ozone treatments on the key compounds (sugars, amino acids and short chain organic acids) in orange juice by NMR and chemometric analysis. The juice was directly and indirectly exposed to atmospheric cold plasma field at 70kV for different treatment time (15, 30, 45 and 60sec). For ozone processing different loads were evaluated. The Principal Component Analysis shown that the groups of compounds are affected differently depending on the processing. The ozone was the processing that more affected the aromatic compounds and atmospheric cold plasma processing affected more the aliphatic compounds. However, these variations did not result in significant changes in orange juice composition as a whole. Thus, NMR data and chemometrics were suitable to follow quality changes in orange juice processing by atmospheric cold plasma and ozone.

Effect of pH and Temperature on Enzyme Activity of Chitosanase Produced Under Solid Stated Fermentation by Trichoderma spp.

Trichoderma strains were extensively studied as biocontrol agents due to their ability of producing hydrolytic enzymes, which are considered key enzymes because they attack the insect exoskeleton allowing the fungi infection. The present work aimed to evaluate the ability of chitosanase production by four Trichoderma strains (T. harzianum, T. koningii, T. viride and T. polysporum) under solid stated fermentation and to evaluate the effect of pH and temperature on enzyme activity. pH strongly affected the enzyme activity from all tested strains. Chitosanase from T. harzianum and T. viride presented optimum activity at pH 5.0 and chitosanase from T. koningii and T. polysporum presented optimum activity at pH 5.5. Temperature in the range of 40-50°C did not affect enzyme activity. T. polysporum was found as the most promising strain to produce chitosanase with maximal enzyme activity of about 1.4 IU/gds, followed by T. viride (~1.2 IU/gds) and T. harzianum (1.06 IU/gds).