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Soybeans play a vital role in the world economy as an essential food commodity by fulfilling human dietary needs. Hence, the seeds are commonly transported and stored in bulk quantities in various parts of the world which ultimately results in infestation issues. Callosobruchus maculatus is one of the major storage pests that infest the soybean seeds and cause losses in both the quantity and quality of the seeds. Cold plasma (CP) is an emerging non‐thermal disinfestation technique that can disinfest food grain. Hence, we have used low pressure (<2 mbar) CP at different voltages (1.0–2.0 kV) and exposure times (2–24 min) to disinfest the C. maculatus from soybeans. The maximum mortality of 100.00 ± 0.00%, 98.89 ± 1.92%, and 37.33 ± 8.08% was achieved in adult, pupae, and egg stage insects, respectively, after 24 min of prolonged CP exposure at 2.0 kV voltage. However, CP treatment (1.5 kV–18 min) induced only 11.11 ± 3.85% mortality in larval stage insects as they were well protected under soybean seed coat. During the experiment, we also identified the impact of insect sex and egg age on the CP treatment effectiveness. Further, we have also analyzed the egg‐producing capacity of CP‐treated adult insects before their death. Apart from disinfestation, the CP treatment also assisted the soymilk extraction and increased the extraction yield from 92.44 ± 1.02% (control) to 97.22 ± 0.19% after CP treatment (2.0 kV–12 min). Nevertheless, the FTIR and SDS PAGE results had not shown any changes in the quality of soymilk extracted after CP treatment. Practical applications: Since the lab scale study was found to be effective against most of the C. maculatus life stages, it is possible to adapt the CP for large‐scale disinfestation applications with essential modifications (i.e., pressure, conveyors) in the system's designs. Apart from that, CP also modifies the surface nature of the grains, hence the treatment also assists in increasing the extraction yield (milk, oil, and protein) and germination percentage of food grains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Shape transforming foods are an emerging area of interest that could be customised according to consumer needs with the desirable structure and reduced package space. The current work aims to investigate the shape transformation behaviour of a 2D xerogel developed from rice hydrogel at the concentration of 4% and 90 °C. This flat xerogel is coated with ethyl cellulose as constraint material in the form of linear equally spaced strips. Immersing the xerogels in hot water over a temperature of 70 °C, resulted in a 3D transformation of the discs in 12 s (Video S1). The transformation is achieved owing to xerogel's increased swelling power (0.27–0.78) due to the anisotropic nature. This is confirmed by the SEM images of top (smooth) and bottom (rough) xerogel. In order to characterise the process of shape transformation bending analysis was done wherein a significant difference in bending angle (35.86–63.10°), height (24.73–50.26 mm), curvature (0.57–2.38 μ mm−1) and end‐to‐end distance (118.23–15.11 mm) from 2 to 12 s. The formed 3D shape was similar to the commercial tubular (penne) pasta. This study opens up the utilisation of less concentrated rice xerogel in shape transformation for designing engineered food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasma‐activated water (PAW) is emerging as a green alternative technology in biomedicine due to its rich and diverse aqueous reactive nitrogen and oxygen species (RONS). This study explores how to configure a pin to water (P2W) discharge to generate neutral pH high‐strength plasma‐activated water (hs‐PAW) and its bactericidal activity on hypervirulent multidrug resistance (MDR) pathogens. The factors affecting the strength of PAW, namely: water type, PAW temperature, plasma enclosure, and activation time, were studied and optimized to generate hs‐PAW having 650 ± 40 mg/l of NO2− ${\mathrm{NO}}_{2}^{-}$ and 215 ± 15 mg/l of H2O2 at a pH of 7. This study demonstrates a simple P2W discharge set up to handle the MDR pathogens and can be easily scalable for real‐world medical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective management of agricultural commodities is of paramount importance for post-harvest storage. With its foremost oxidant property, ozone stands up as an emerging fumigant for controlling insects and pests. In that vein, the key focus of this study is to find the effectiveness of ozone as an alternative fumigant in grain storage, fruits, vegetable, and spices whereby 100% mortality was achieved in most insect species. An inquisitive investigation on the insect inactivation mechanism, effects on mortality, challenges in bulk storage, and quality changes are discussed. A brief comparison of ozone with other chemical fumigants and techniques confirmed its profound usage as a greener alternative fumigant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]