Sharif Digital Repository

The food industry is dealing with the challenge of preserving fruits and vegetables and extending their shelf life, so the methods of food preservation have been investigated. Pathogens causing intestinal infections have been identified as a major cause of human disease; therefore, efforts should be made to reduce these pathogens in fruits and vegetables. Essential oils extracted from herbs and edible plants have natural antimicrobial additives. Due to their low water solubility, high volatility, and strong organoleptic qualities, essential oils are not commonly used to reduce microbial growth in fruits and vegetables. To overcome these challenges, encapsulation of essential oils in... 

This study investigates a supply chain of perishable fruits and vegetables. A simulation model using system dynamics approach is proposed to study the behaviors and relationships within the supply chain and to determine the impact of the supply, demand and price interactions. The proposed model yields an insight into the overall agricultural system, taking into account the influence of import quota policies. The purpose of this study is to develop a multi-objective model identifying the best import quota policy for Tehran Municipality Organization of Fruits and Vegetables. The multiple objectives are considered to be price mean, price variation and markup. Key conclusions were reached on how... 

Titanium nanotubes (TNTs) were prepared using TiO2 and decorated with CuO and Cu2O to have photocatalytic efficiency under visible light. TNTs decorated with copper oxides (TNT-CuO and TNT-Cu2O) were confirmed by the elemental mapping and XPS results. Unlike TNT and TiO2, TNT-CuO and TNT-Cu2O showed higher photocatalytic activity, such as antimicrobial and ethylene scavenging activities under visible light. Between the two types of copper oxide-decorated TNTs, TNT-Cu2O showed photocatalytic activity higher than that of TNT-CuO. The ethylene scavenging activity of TNT-Cu2O was about 40% higher than that of TNTs and TNT-CuO. The photocatalytic activity of titanium-based nanoparticles was... 

Fruit and vegetable wastes are produced in large quantities in Iran, and constitute a source of nuisance in municipal landfills. The objective of this study was to optimize the applications of anaerobic digestion for the treatment of municipal organic wastes. We studied the effect of organic loading rates on anaerobic digestion of vegetable wastes. The complete-mix, pilot-scale digester with working volume of 70 1 was used. The experiments were conducted at 34°C with a fixed hydraulic retention time of 25 days. The digester was operated at different organic feeding rates of 1.4, 2 and 2.75 kg VS/(m3.d). The biogas produced had methane composition of 49.7- 64% and biogas production rates of... 

Biomass, originates from plant- or animal-based materials with a huge potential to be reused. Here we report a simple, rapid and inexpensive method for preparation of modified biochars derived from the banana peel followed by their applications in pipette-tip micro solid-phase extraction (PT-µSPE). Due to the contribution of various effective parameters on modification of banana peel biochars (BPBs), Taguchi design was used to optimize activation temperature, activation repetition, treatment material and impregnation ratio. Efficiency of the prepared BPBs were studied by extraction of twelve various pesticides, as model analytes with an extended range of log P values (1.4–5.7), followed by...