•Intelligent and active packaging (AP) is considered as novel food packaging methods.•In AP additives such as essential oils can be incorporated into packaging materials.•Essential oil increases the ...UV barrier property in food packaging.•Packaging and coating incorporated with essential oil increased surface hydrophobicity.•AP loaded with EOs can preserve foods by releasing antioxidant or antimicrobial agents.
Food packaging can be considered as a passive barrier that protects food from environmental factors such as ultraviolet light, oxygen, water vapour, pressure and heat. It also prolongs the shelf-life of food by protecting from chemical and microbiological contaminants and enables foods to be transported and stored safely. Active packaging (AP) provides the opportunity for interaction between the external environment and food, resulting in extended shelf-life of food. Chemoactive packaging has an impact on the chemical composition of the food product. The application of natural additive such as essential oils in active packaging can be used in the forms of films and coatings. It has been observed that, AP helps to maintain temperature, moisture level and microbial and quality control of the food. This review article provides an overview of the active packaging incorporated with essential oils, concerns and challenges in industry, and the effect of essential oil on the packaging microstructure, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.
Metal nanoparticles (NPs) may have the potential to overcome problems related to conventional chemotherapy. Metal NPs reported to play a beneficial and powerful role in cancer therapy providing ...better targeting, gene silencing and drug delivery. Functionalised metal NPs with targeting ligands offer a better control of energy deposition in the tumours. Apart from therapeutic benefits, metal NPs are also used as a diagnostic tool for the imaging of cancer cells. Metal NP-based therapeutic systems not only provide simultaneous diagnostic and therapy but also allow controlled and targeted drug release which helps to revolutionise cancer treatment and management. This review addresses the advancement of metal NPs in tumour therapy with a focus on those being explained into clinical settings.
The past decade has witnessed a phenomenal rise in nanotechnology research due to its broad range of applications in diverse fields including food safety, transportation, sustainable energy, ...environmental science, catalysis, and medicine. The distinctive properties of nanomaterials (nano-sized particles in the range of 1 to 100 nm) make them uniquely suitable for such wide range of functions. The nanoparticles when manufactured using green synthesis methods are especially desirable being devoid of harsh operating conditions (high temperature and pressure), hazardous chemicals, or addition of external stabilizing or capping agents. Numerous plants and microorganisms are being experimented upon for an eco–friendly, cost–effective, and biologically safe process optimization. This review provides a comprehensive overview on the green synthesis of metallic NPs using plants and microorganisms, factors affecting the synthesis, and characterization of synthesized NPs. The potential applications of metal NPs in various sectors have also been highlighted along with the major challenges involved with respect to toxicity and translational research.
Due to its short lifetime food packaging leads to a rapid accumulation of plastic in our surroundings and thereby also has a huge impact on environmental pollution. To reduce these effects and create ...a more sustainable approach towards food packaging, biodegradable and biobased polymers have been developed and are emerging on the market.
This review provides the current state of research regarding active packaging and the incorporation of seaweed into food packaging. Further, it summarises the resulting consequences of the seaweed incorporation on mechanical, physical, thermal, antioxidant, antimicrobial and chemical properties, as well as the release of active compounds to show the advantages of the polysaccharides as well as possible shortcomings in current research.
To improve these polymers regarding their mechanical, thermal and antimicrobial properties etc. a variety of polysaccharides such as seaweeds can be used. They not only lead to an increase in hydrophilicity and improved mechanical properties such as tensile strength and elongation at break, but also create the possibility of using it as active packaging. This can be achieved due to the naturally occurring antioxidant properties in seaweed, which can minimise lipid oxidation and thereby increase the shelf life and nutritional value of food as well as reduce free radicals which might have a carcinogenic, mutagenic or cytotoxic effect. Some seaweeds such as H. elongate have also proven to inhibit the growth of gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, meaning that they could possibly be used as antimicrobial packaging.
•Packaging is an essential part of the food industry and critical to maintain food safety.•Active packaging extends the shelf life, improve safety and maintain quality of the product.•Compounds such as citric acid, enzymes, polysaccharides are used in in active packaging.•Incorporation of seaweeds polysaccharides may influence film properties.•Promising possibility for seaweeds polysaccharides as sustainable active packaging films.
Tin dioxide (SnO
2
), the most stable oxide of tin, is a metal oxide semiconductor that finds its use in a number of applications due to its interesting energy band gap that is easily tunable by ...doping with foreign elements or by nanostructured design such as thin film, nanowire or nanoparticle formation,
etc.
, and its excellent thermal, mechanical and chemical stability. In particular, its earth abundance and non-toxicity make it very attractive for use in a number of technologies for sustainable development such as energy harvesting and storage. This article attempts to review the state of the art of synthesis and properties of SnO
2
, focusing primarily on its application as a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) in various optoelectronic devices and second in energy harvesting and energy storage devices where it finds its use as an electron transport layer (ETL) and an electrode material, respectively. In doing so, we discuss how tin oxide meets the requirements for the above applications, the challenges associated with these applications, and how its performance can be further improved by adopting various strategies such as doping with foreign metals, functionalization with plasma,
etc.
The article begins with a review on the various experimental approaches to doping of SnO
2
with foreign elements for its enhanced performance as a TCO as well as related computational studies. Herein, we also compare the TCO performance of doped tin oxide as a function of dopants such as fluorine (F), antimony (Sb), tantalum (Ta), tungsten (W), molybdenum (Mo), phosphorus (P), and gallium (Ga). We also discuss the properties of multilayer SnO
2
/metal/SnO
2
structures with respect to TCO performance. Next, we review the status of tin oxide as a TCO and an ETL in devices such as organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic photovoltaics (OPV), and perovskite solar cells (including plasma treatment approaches) followed by its use in building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) applications. Next, we review the impact of SnO
2
, mainly as an electrode material on energy storage devices starting from the most popular lithium (Li)-ion batteries to Li-sulfur batteries and finally to the rapidly emerging technology of supercapacitors. Finally, we also compare the performance of doped SnO
2
with gallium (Ga) doped zinc oxide (ZnO), the main sustainable alternative to SnO
2
as a TCO and summarize the impact of SnO
2
on circular economies and discuss the main conclusions and future perspectives. It is expected that the review will serve as an authoritative reference for researchers and policy makers interested in finding out how SnO
2
can contribute to the circular economy of some of the most desired sustainable and clean energy technologies including the detailed experimental methods of synthesis and strategies for performance enhancement.
Tin dioxide (SnO
2
) used in various applications due to suitable band gap and tunable conductivity. It has excellent thermal, mechanical and chemical stability.
•Solar thermal bio-refinery technology was demonstrated for biofuels production.•All three pyrolysed products were assessed for their feasibility as fuel candidates.•Pyrolytic zone for Jatropha seed ...biomass was in the range of 203–508°C.•Presence of alkane, ester, alkene, & alkyne groups were confirmed in products.•Maximum of 20% bio-oil, 51% bio-char and 29% pyrolytic gas were obtained.
The present study is focused on conversion of non-edible Jatropha seeds biomass to biofuels i.e., liquid, solid and gaseous fuels via solar thermochemical pyrolysis process. All the three products namely; (i) bio-oil (liquid) (ii) biochar (solid) and (iii) pyrolytic gas were characterized by means of TG (Thermo-gravimetric), FTIR (Fourier transform infrared), GC–MS (Gas chromatography mass spectroscopy), proximate and ultimate analysis; and assessed their feasibility as fuel candidates. It is explored that 20% maximum bio-oil yield was obtained with the average reactor temperature of 250–320°C. The pyrolytic zone for the biomass was identified in the range of 203–508°C. The ultimate analysis of the bio-oil revealed that the oil is rich in carbon (58.3%) and hydrogen (8.7%) with an average chemical composition of CH1.79N0.05O0.40. Relatively lower oxygen content in the bio-oil favors for high heating value. Higher H/C ratio (1.79) and lower O/C ratio (0.4) of the bio-oil indicates its suitability as petroleum fuel for engine applications. The carbon compounds present in the bio-oil are from C7 to C28 which may represent the mixture of diesel and gasoline fuels. Finally, it is emerged from the study that all the three products are exibiting various favorable conditions to be employed as fuel candidates for different applications such as engines and boilers.
Summary
The CRISPR/Cas9 system is an RNA‐guided sequence‐specific genome editing tool, which has been adopted for single or multiple gene editing in a wide range of organisms. When working with gene ...families with functional redundancy, knocking out multiple genes within the same family may be required to generate a phenotype. In this study, we tested the possibility of exploiting the known tolerance of Cas9 for mismatches between the single‐guide RNA (sgRNA) and target site to simultaneously introduce indels in multiple homologous genes in the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. As a proof of concept, we designed two sgRNAs that could potentially target the same six light‐harvesting complex (LHC) genes belonging to the LHCF subgroup. Mutations in up to five genes were achieved simultaneously using a previously established CRISPR/Cas9 system for P. tricornutum. A visible colour change was observed in knockout mutants with multiple LHCF lesions. A combination of pigment, LHCF protein and growth analyses was used to further investigate the phenotypic differences between the multiple LHCF mutants and WT. Furthermore, we used the two same sgRNAs in combination with a variant of the existing Cas9 where four amino acids substitutions had been introduced that previously have been shown to increase Cas9 specificity. A significant reduction of off‐target editing events was observed, indicating that the altered Cas9 functioned as a high‐fidelity (HiFi) Cas9 nuclease.
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•Microbial contamination of food contact materials is a major challenge in industry.•Adherence of microorganism on food contact material is favoured by food processing ...conditions.•Chemical sanitizers are effective but may leads to bacterial resistance and surface corrosion.•Natural antimicrobials or surface modification improves safety and inertness of food contact materials.•Emerging technologies are more effective and have high potential for decontamination of food contact materials.
Foodborne pathogens could be transferred to food from food contact surfaces contaminated by poor hygiene or biofilm formation. The food processing industry has various conditions favouring microbes' adherence, such as moisture, nutrients, and the microbial inoculums obtained from the raw material. The function of the ideal antimicrobial surface is preventing initial attachment of the microbes, killing the microbes or/and removing the dead bacteria. This review article provides detail about the challenges food industries are facing with respect to food contact materials. It also summarises the merits and demerits of several sanitizing methods developed for industrial use. Furthermore, it reviews the new and emerging techniques that enhance the efficiency of reducing microbial contamination. Techniques such as surface functionalisation, high-intensity ultrasound, cold plasma technologies etc. which have high potential to be used for the decontamination of food contact surfaces are discussed. The emerging designs of antibacterial surfaces provide the opportunity to reduce or eradicate the adhesion of microorganisms. The most important purpose of these surfaces is to prevent the attachment of bacteria and to kill the bacteria that come in contact. These emerging technologies have a high potential for developing safe and inert food contact materials for the food industry.
Nano-graphene oxide (GO) nanometal composite (specifically nanogold and nanosilver) have shown to be a promising material for anticancer therapeutics. Owing to their high drug loading capacity, ...photothermal and synergizing effects, it is very important to exploit them for targeted chemo-thermal cancer therapeutics. In this work, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were selected as the composite metal, folic acid (FA) was taken as GO surface functionalization moiety for active tumor targeting of model anticancer drug Doxorubicin (Dox). AuNPs composite-folate conjugated graphene oxide (FA-GO@Au) nano-platforms were synthesized and characterized in detail. Near-infrared (NIR) sensitivity resulted in an aggravated release of both Dox and ionic gold from the nanohybrid surface. Simultaneous delivery of Dox and AuNPs in the cellular vicinity was further enhanced after localized NIR exposure which resulted in significantly improved cancer cell toxicity. Mechanistic evaluation revealed G0/G1 phase arrest due to increased DNA intercalation and provoked early apoptosis under NIR influence. Pharmacokinetics and organ distribution studies were carried out in healthy mice and rabbits to estimate the actual bio fate of these nanohybrids. In vivo studies showed substantial tumor regression in solid tumor model in Balb/c mice and NIR exposure induced photo-thermal effects further resulted in better tumor management. Study provides substantial evidences both at in vitro and in vivo level to support the fact that NIR induced local photo-thermal effects can solely be used as a tumor targeting tool. This NIR dependent nanohybrid approach presents a precise and flexible strategy for targeted chemotherapy and photo-thermal tumor ablation.
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To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, India imposed a national lockdown at the end of March 2020, a decision that resulted in a massive reverse migration as many workers across economic sectors returned ...to their home regions. Migrants provide the foundations of the agricultural workforce in the ‘breadbasket’ states of Punjab and Haryana in Northwest India.There are mounting concerns that near and potentially longer-term reductions in labor availability may jeopardize agricultural production and consequently national food security. The timing of rice transplanting at the beginning of the summer monsoon season has a cascading influence on productivity of the entire rice-wheat cropping system. To assess the potential for COVID-related reductions in the agriculture workforce to disrupt production of the dominant rice-wheat cropping pattern in these states, we use a spatial ex ante modelling framework to evaluate four scenarios representing a range of plausible labor constraints on the timing of rice transplanting. Averaged over both states, results suggest that rice productivity losses under all delay scenarios would be low as compare to those for wheat, with total system productivity loss estimates ranging from 9%, to 21%, equivalent to economic losses of USD $674 m to $1.48 billion. Late rice transplanting and harvesting can also aggravate winter air pollution with concomitant health risks. Technological options such as direct seeded rice, staggered nursery transplanting, and crop diversification away from rice can help address these challenges but require new approaches to policy and incentives for change.
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•An ex-ante analysis was done using geospatial tools on potential effect of labour shortage on rice-wheat system.•Food grain production loss due to labor shortage can be 23% from current levels of production.•Residue burning will exacerbate air pollution in winter and could coincide with an anticipated COVID resurgence in the fall.•India needs new strategies to use available technological and management innovations to address emerging constraints.
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