The agricultural sector is considered as one of the main elements of a “functional” society and its welfare for providing means to fulfil the most basic human need for food. In the past, an improved overall welfare of developed countries was directly related to early investment in conventional farming machinery parallel to the industrial development. With the expected future population increase and climate change, farm yield gaps are expected to increase and become more volatile. The awareness of negative externalities ...

Agro-processing is key to reducing post-harvest losses. Agro-processing is defined as a set of techno-economic activities applied to all the products originating from the agricultural farm, livestock, aqua cultural sources, and forests for their conservation, handling, and value-addi-tion to make them usable as food, feed, fibre, fuel, or industrial raw materials [12]. Processing can be sophisticated (relying on industrial plants and machinery) or simple (depending on the sun or indigenous small-scale processes). The ...

There is great interest, not only in technologically advanced societies, in developing innovative sources of raw materials, especially lignocellulosic biomasses such as cereal straw, which do not interfere with food production. In Germany, 4 – 9 million tons of cereal straw, mainly wheat, are utilized annually, corresponding to an energy potential of 57 – 129 PJ/a. Lignocellulose, found in plant cell walls, consists of hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin, and it requires complex fractionation to enable its polymers ...

Milk proteins are one of the heat-sensitive nutritional components, especially whey proteins changing their structure through thermal treatment, consequently denaturizing and aggregating. The transformation of native whey proteins structure in presence of shear stress resulted in the microparticulation, which affected the functional properties. Many authors investigated these parameters with different conditions; however, understanding the combination of relevant parameters of the microparticulation process of whey ...

This study investigated strategies applied in drying technology to produce an optimised quality of plant-sourced food while considering environmental and sustainability aspects based on a case study of celeriac and powder, respectively. The I-optimal design of response surface methodology with 30 experiment runs was applied for process optimisation. Pre-drying treatments (blanching at 85 °C, 3 min; dipping in 1% citric acid solution, 3 min; no pre-drying treatment), drying temperatures (50, 60, and 70 °C), air ...

Meat drying has a long tradition worldwide and technically dried meat is increasingly valued as a low-fat snack or high-protein food product. Convection drying is widely used in industrial food preservation and has to provide high process efficiency and high product qualities, which can be contradictory. Therefore, it is important to understand the changes that occur in the product in order to develop drying strategies that consider process and product efficiency each at an acceptable level. The objective of this ...

Schnecken sind bedeutende Schädlinge in der Landwirtschaft. Die Ausbringung von Schneckenkorn zur Schneckenbekämpfung als Verfahren nach dem Stand der Technik hat jedoch erhebliche Nachteile. Der Erfolg ist abhängig von der vorherrschenden Witterung und damit unsicher, zudem schadet es auch Nützlingen. Eine Robotik-Lösung zu Schneckenbekämpfung arbeitet wetterunabhängig und ist in der Lage, zwischen Schädlingen und Nützlingen zu unterscheiden. Durch einen Feldversuch konnte gezeigt werden, dass Überfahrten eines ...

Pineapples, like all fruits, are highly perishable and require either immediate consumption or preservation. To make them more stable and add value, four major processing methods are being employed in Uganda, i.e. drying, munaanansi (local drink), wine, and juice making. Energy is one of the main inputs required to achieve any of the processing methods. The aim of this research was to develop energy use profiles, gain insights into energy use reduction options, and to evaluate the applicability of renewable energies ...

Drying is of great importance particularly in the field of preserving agricultural products. It plays a very critical role by delivering nutrient rich products with a long shelf-life as well as help to combat food loss. Drying processing techniques have changed and improved significantly over time, helping to ensure food abundance in both aesthetical and nutritional regards. Convective hot air drying is one of the most common technique practiced by 85 % of industries. It can be easily applied in the remote areas of ...

With increasing population and global warming, the need for functional yet nutritional food combined with energy efficient processes has risen significantly. The new “Industry 4.0” revolution acknowledging this need aims to develop and improve processes that are affordable as well as sustainable. For a process like drying this means a shift towards smart or intelligent drying systems using a multidisciplinary approach. This encompasses the use of advanced computational algorithms and control systems integrated with ...