Effect of Drying Kinetics, Volatile Components, Flavor Changes and Final Quality Attributes of Moslae herba during the Hot Air Thin-Layer Drying Process.

Moslae herba is considered to be a functional food ingredient or nutraceutical due to its rich bioactive components. The present research was carried out to investigate the effects of different temperatures (40 °C, 50 °C and 60 °C) on the drying characteristics, textural properties, bioactive compounds, flavor changes and final quality attributes of Moslae herba during the hot air-drying process. The results showed that the Midilli model could effectively simulate the drying process of Moslae herba. The effective moisture diffusivity ranged from 3.14 × 10-5 m2/s to 7.39 × 10-5 m2/s, and the activation energy was estimated to be 37.29 kJ/mol. Additionally, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of Moslae herba samples showed the shrinkage of the underlying epidermal layers and glandular trichomes. In total, 23 volatile compounds were detected in Moslae herba. Among them, the content of thymol increased from 28.29% in fresh samples to 56.75%, 55.86% and 55.62% in samples dried at temperatures of 40 °C, 50 °C and 60 °C, respectively, while the other two components, p-cymene and γ-terpinene, decreased with an increase in the temperature. Furthermore, both radar fingerprinting and principal component analysis (PCA) of the electronic nose (E-nose) showed that the flavor substances significantly altered during the drying process. Eventually, drying Moslae herba at 60 °C positively affected the retention of total phenolics, total flavonoids and the antioxidant capacity as compared with drying at 40 °C and 50 °C. The overall results elucidated that drying Moslae herba at the temperature of 60 °C efficiently enhanced the final quality by significantly reducing the drying time and maintaining the bioactive compounds.

Analysis of optical waveguides with ultra-thin metal film based on the multidomain pseudospectral frequency-domain method.

Analysis of optical waveguides with thin metal films is studied by the multidomain pseudospectral frequency-domain (PSFD) method. Calculated results for both guiding and leaky modes are precise by means of the PSFD based on Chebyshev-Lagrange interpolating polynomials with modified perfectly matched layer (MPML). By introducing a suitable boundary condition for the dielectric-metallic interface, the stability and the spectrum convergence characteristic of the PSFD-MPML method can be sustained. The comparison of exact solutions of highly sensitive surface plasmon modes in 1D dielectric-metal waveguides and those calculated by our PSFD-MPML demonstrates the validity and usefulness of the proposed method. We also apply the method to calculate the effective refractive indices of an integrated optical waveguide with deposition of the finite gold metal layer which induces the hybrid surface plasmon modes. Furthermore, the 2-D optical structures with gold films are investigated to exhibit hybrid surface plasmon modes of wide variations. We then apply hybrid surface plasmon modes to design novel optical components-mode selective devices and the polarizing beam splitter.