Search

Many horticultural products are stored for prolonged periods of time in bulk-stacked packages within cool storage facilities. Product storage life depends on temperature, extent of water loss (and hence surrounding atmospheric relative humidity), surrounding atmospheric composition and the product's own physiology. The engineer designs equipment to create a desirable bulk storage environment in the refrigerated space, but may also choose to design the packaging to deliberately modify the local in-package environment. When a new package design is proposed, its performance should be easily predicted rather than requiring costly experimental evaluation of prototypes. The accuracy of a mathematical model in practice depends on both the validity of the assumptions made and the quality of the knowledge of system data. Any model must take account of the major sources of variation in a realistic manner if accurate prediction of product conditions is to be achieved. Modelling of the relevant behaviour of a horticultural package in refrigerated storage, with or without atmosphere modification, requires understanding of the heat and mass transfer processes within the commodity, between the commodity and its surrounding medium, and between the packaging and both the commodity and the external environment. This review of model-based design of horticultural packaging summarises work completed by researchers in this field.

It is very rare for food to improve in quality with storage (maybe with the exception of wine and cheeses). Texture, flavour, colour and nutritional composition all change (generally negatively), and their deterioration in quality can be regulated by the conditions they are stored in. This article covers changes in texture, flavor, color and nutritional composition, and outlines the impacts that storage conditions can have on these rates of change. It also deals with shelf-life after storage, and has a particular section on the intrinsic storage properties of fruits and vegetables which, due to their living status, can be heavily impacted by the conditions under which they are stored. This article gives a general overview that provides the reader with directions for further exploration of the topic.

This article focuses on Food Quality, Storage, and Transport. It examines the influence of the logistics chain on food quality attributes, covering diverse areas such as changes in quality during storage and during shelf life components of the chain, through to cool- and cold-store design and operation.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is an emerging and significantly advantageous technology for the food industry. Advances in sensor development, communications technology, and integration of data with models for prediction of future quality attributes see RFID becoming an essential tool for improvements in supply chain logistics management, product traceability, security and, ultimately, reduction in product wastage.

The purpose of a cool- or cold-store is to store perishable products at low temperatures. The design and construction of cool- and cold-stores is a multi-faceted process that requires design engineers to ensure that the elements including site selection, layout, mechanical and structural equipment all work in unison to deliver a building that meets the needs of the user.

Publisher Summary The use of palladium in organic synthesis has undergone a remarkable expansion in recent years. Many versatile synthetic methods have been developed and palladium is now the transition metal most frequently used in organic transformations. The reason for this rich chemistry is that palladium is highly efficient in almost all fundamental organometallic reactions, particularly those involving activation of organic substrates, and those leading to formation of new carbon–carbon and carbon–heteroatom bonds. This chapter focuses on the use of palladium-catalyzed reactions in the synthesis of alkaloids, but a few examples where palladium is used in stoichiometric amounts have also been presented in the chapter. The chapter describes a number of palladium-catalyzed processes that are often used in organic synthesis. These techniques can be conveniently divided into palladium(O) and palladium(II)-catalyzed reactions. In palladium(O)-catalyzed reactions the zerovalent metal is stabilized by ligands, most commonly by tertiary phosphines. Several different types of Pd(O)-catalyzed reactions are described in the chapter.