Preliminary Study on Biosensor-Type Time-Temperature Integrator for Intelligent Food Packaging.

A glucose biosensor was utilized as a platform for the time-temperature integrator (TTI), a device for intelligent food packaging. The TTI system is composed of glucose oxidase, glucose, a pH indicator, and a three-electrode potentiostat, which produces an electrical signal as well as color development. The reaction kinetics of these response variables were analyzed under isothermal conditions. The reaction rates of the electrical current and color changes were 0.0360 ± 0.0020 (95% confidence limit), 0.0566 ± 0.0026, 0.0716 ± 0.0024, 0.1073 ± 0.0028 µA/min, and 0.0187 ± 0.0005, 0.0293 ± 0.0018, 0.0363 ± 0.0012, 0.0540 ± 0.0019 1/min, at 5, 15, 25, and 35 °C, respectively. The Arrhenius activation energy of the current reaction (Eacurrent) was 25.0 ± 1.6 kJ/mol and the Eacolor of the color reactions was 24.2 ± 0.6 kJ/mol. The similarity of these Ea shows agreement in the prediction of food qualities between the electrical signal and color development. Consequently, the function of the new time-temperature integrator system could be extended to that of a biosensor compatible with any electrical utilization equipment.

Modeling respiration rates of Ipomoea batatas (sweet potato) under hermetic storage system.

The sweet potato respiration rate versus gas composition was mathematically modeled, as required to design an effective modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) system. Storage tests of sweet potato were conducted at 15-30 °C. The O2 and CO2 concentrations were measured over time in a closed system. The respiration rate was estimated to be a derivative of the quadratic function of gas concentration over time and decreased with decreasing O2 and increasing CO2. The model of the uncompetitive inhibition enzyme reaction rate fitted well with the experimental results. The temperature dependency of the equation parameters (Vm, Km, and Ki) followed the Arrhenius relationships. The use of the proposed models to simulate the respiration rates as a function of temperature revealed less temperature dependence in low O2 and high CO2 concentrations. This gas composition, more desirable in practice, also agreed with the typical gas composition of MAP.

Measurement of cooked rice stickiness with consideration of contact area in compression test.

The cooked rice stickiness is conventionally measured as the maximum detachment force required to separate the probe from the sample, after compression on the platform of a texture analyzer. A corrected stickiness (the measured stickiness force divided by the contact area) was newly created to avoid the deviation of stickiness influenced by the contact area varying with the rice sample's irregularity, regarding shape and size. The contact area could be estimated from the volume, density, and thickness of the samples. The compression force triggering the stickiness was also converted to the corrected compression force (the force divided by the contact area). Two varieties of rice (short-grain rice and glutinous rice) were cooked with different amount of water to prepare the samples with various stickiness levels. The contact area was mostly higher in the glutinous rice than short-grain rice. The contact area increased with the cooking water amount. Three parameters were compared such as the stickiness (the measured force), the primarily corrected stickiness (the corrected stickiness at a fixed value of compression force), and the secondarily corrected stickiness (the corrected stickiness at a fixed value of the corrected compression force). The difference between the rice samples was the most pronounced in the secondarily corrected stickiness. The correlation between the instrumental and sensorial stickiness was also the highest in the secondarily corrected stickiness. Conclusively, the new corrected parameters enhanced the sample discrimination capability and the agreement with the sensorial stickiness than the uncorrected stickiness. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Stickiness is the important quality factor associated with cooked rice preferences. Instrumental stickiness is a detaching force of the preliminarily compressed rice grain by cylindrical probe of texture testing equipment. When it comes to a force measurement, the contact area is usually considered to convert the force to stress. But, for the samples like cooked rice grain, with smaller contact area than that of probe, the contact area is not easy to know because it is not simply the probe bottom area. So the contact area had not been employed to measure cooked rice stickiness. In this study, an established method was devised to figure out the contact area. The corrected stickiness by considering the contact area proved to be more accurate than the original stickiness through sensory evaluation.