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... 

The extracted Iranian olive fruit essential oil was analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Multivariate curve resolution-alternative least squares approach was used to overcome the problem of background, baseline offset and overlapping/embedded peaks in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The analysis of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry data revealed that 90 components exist in the olive fruit essential oil. However, with the help of multivariate curve resolution-alternative least squares this number was extended to 141 components with concentrations higher than 0.01%. Major constituents in the olive fruit oil are 2-dodecenal (16.88%), 2-undecenal (10.71%), ethyl oleate... 

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... 

Seawater, which has been frequently applied in cooling and injection water systems, imposes severe pitting corrosion to mild steel. Addition of green and sustainable inhibitors based on renewable sources is one of the promising methodologies for restricting metal corrosion in chloride-containing electrolytes. In this study, for the first time, from both theoretical and experimental faces, the role of Juglans regia green fruit shell (JRS) extract as a sustainable potent corrosion inhibitor for mild steel was studied. The chemical structure of the JRS extract was deliberated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). By electrochemical techniques including polarization, EIS and... 

Emergence of high pseudo-magnetic field as a result of mechanical deformations is one of the intriguing characteristics of the graphene honeycomb structure. For a time-dependent nonuniform strain and in the context of Berry curvature approach, the topological charge pumping is studied theoretically. Calculations have been performed in time–momentum parametric space. Within the Berry curvature approach, it has been revealed that time-dependent deformations result in nonzero valley-dependent charge pumping in the gapped graphene when there is a population imbalance between the valleys. This indicates that the valley polarization can be measured by the amount of topological charge pumping in... 

Magnons and phonons are two fundamental neutral excitations of magnetically ordered materials which can significantly dominate the low-energy thermal properties. In this work we study the interplay of magnons and phonons in honeycomb and kagome lattices. When the mirror reflection with respect to the magnetic ordering direction is broken, the symmetry-allowed in-plane Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction will couple the magnons to the phonons and the magnon-polaron states are formed. Besides, both lattice structures also allow for an out-of-plane DM interaction rendering the uncoupled magnons to be topological. Our aim is to study the interplay of such topological magnons with phonons. We... 

Bactrocera dorsalis and B. correcta (Diptera: Tephritidae) are economically important pests of fruits and have caused serious damage to fruits for the last several years worldwide. In China, B. correcta is second economic pest of fruits after B. dorsalis. Considering the importance of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs, Information regarding host preference and fitness of both Bactrocera species are necessary for better management strategies. Therefore, the current study explains the response of both Bactrocera species on banana, guava, and mango fruits. The cultivar of banana, guava, and mango fruits used first time in this study. Therefore, the volatile/aromatic components of... 

The quality of fresh apple fruits is a major concern for consumers and manufacturers. Classification of these fruits according to their ripening stage is one of the most decisive factors in determining their quality. In this regard, the aim of this work is to develop a new method for non-destructive classification of the ripening state of Fuji apples using hyperspectral information in the visible and near-infrared (Vis/NIR) regions. Spectra of 172 apple samples in the range from 450 to 1000 nm were studied, which were selected from four different ripening stages. A convolutional neural network (CNN) model was proposed to perform the classification of the samples. The proposed method was... 

A chitosan-based carbon quantum dots (CQDs) with multifunctional properties were synthesized using a hydrothermal process. The CQDs were spherical with an average size of 7.8 ± 2.4 nm. The CQD showed strong antioxidant activity, potent antibacterial activity against E. coli and L. monocytogenes, and antifungal activity against A. niger and P. chrysogenum. In addition, the prepared CQD showed negligible cytotoxicity against L929 cells even at a concentration of 500 μg/mL. Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)-based functional films were fabricated by adding various amounts of CQD. The CQDs were evenly dispersed in the polymer matrix to form a highly transparent UV-blocking film. The addition of CQD... 

A low cost nanostructure pressure sensor has been designed, fabricated and tested based on graphene structure. The sensor structure is composed of the period structure of graphene oxide/reduced graphene oxide. The structure is fabricated by laser scanning system, where a beam of laser will convert the graphene oxide substrate to reduced graphene oxide. The geometrical structure of the sensor has been designed and optimized using computational analysis with Finite Element Method. The results of measurements show that the sensor structure is capable of measuring 1.45 kPa. The proposed sensor structure can be exploited in the application of electronic skin, synthetic tissue and robotic... 

A series of novel chitosan/nanodiamond (CTS/ND) composites containing NDs with variable surface carboxyl groups and various concentrations were prepared using solution casting method. Powdery CTS/ND composites were employed as the adsorbent of a model anionic dye (methyl orange, MO). Experimental results showed that the incorporation of NDs with high carboxylic content (ND-H) in to CTS increased substantially the maximum adsorption capacity of neat CTS from 167 mg/g to 454 mg/g. The remarkable adsorption capacity of dye on CTS/ND composites was associated to the oxygen-containing groups on the outer surface of NDs which would be beneficial to interact with the dye molecules through hydrogen... 

The concept of symbiosis, a mutually beneficial relationship, can be applied to food and energy systems. Greenhouse systems and biogas plants are interesting technologies for food–energy symbiosis, because both are usually based in rural areas and offer opportunities for the exchange of materials (e.g., biomass waste from the greenhouse as input to biogas plants) and energy (heat from biogas co-generation for heating greenhouses). In this paper, the focus lies on manure resources for biogas in Switzerland, because manure amounts are high and currently largely underused. We provide a spatial analysis of the availability of manure as feedstock to biogas plants and heat source for greenhouses.... 

A titanium dioxide nanotube (TNT) and CuO-doped TNT (TNT-CuO) were synthesized using a hydrothermal method and incorporated into carrageenan-based films. The SEM results confirmed the formation of uniform nanocomposite films. The addition of nanoparticles imparted UV-blocking properties to the carrageenan film and increased the mechanical strength, surface hydrophobicity, and water vapor barrier properties. The modified TiO2 (TNT and TNT-CuO)-incorporated carrageenan films showed significantly higher antibacterial activity than the TiO2-added film under visible light. Bananas packaged with the neat carrageenan and TiO2-added films were degraded considerably after 12 days of storage at 20 °C.... 

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... 

A new magnetic, catalytic nanocomposite of Hal-MT-Cys-Ag/MNCD was fabricated and utilized for catalyzing reductive de-colorization of methyl orange and rhodamin B in aqueous media at room temperature. To prepare this material, Cl-functionalized halloysite nanoclay was successively reacted with melamine and 2,4,6-trichloro-1,3,5-triazine to furnish multi-nitrogen containing ligand on halloysite surface. Then, magnetic carbon dots were crafted through a facile method and decorated with Ag nanoparticles and cysteine to furnish Cys-Ag/MNCD species. The final nanocomposite was obtained via incorporation of this latter species onto functionalized halloysite. This new composite was characterized... 

This study focuses on the spectrochemical estimation of pH and titratable acidity (TA) of apples of Fuji variety at different stages of ripening. A novel approach is proposed for near-infrared (NIR) spectral analysis using hybrid machine learning methods that combine artificial neural networks (ANN) and metaheuristic algorithms. One hundred twenty samples were collected at three ripening stages and spectral data within two bands of NIR were extracted from each sample to predict the acidity properties. Alternatively, the 4 most effective wavelengths were also selected using a hybrid of ANN and the cultural algorithm. The experimental results prove that the models using spectral bands and the... 

A series of UiO-66/polyaniline (UiO-66/PANI) nanohybrids with various UiO-66 to aniline weight ratios ranging from 0.01 to 0.1 was synthesized using an in situ polymerization technique. The adsorption behavior of the neat PANI nanofiber network and the synthesized nanohybrids was examined toward anionic methyl orange (MO) dye from aqueous media. It was realized that the maximum adsorption capacity of PANI (229 mg/g) increases steadily by increasing the UiO-66 content in the nanohybrid up to 7 wt % at 426 mg/g, and then, it approximately levels off at 432 mg/g for the nanohybrid sample containing 10 wt % UiO-66, that is, UP10. Based on a thorough characterization, it was shown that UiO-66 is... 

We study the quantum nonlinear planar Hall effect in bilayer graphene under a steady in-plane magnetic field. When time-reversal symmetry is broken by the magnetic field, a charge current occurs in the second-order response to an external electric field as a result of the Berry curvature dipole in momentum space. We show that a nonlinear planar Hall effect originating from the anomalous velocity is caused by an orbital effect of an in-plane magnetic field on electrons in bilayer graphene in the complete absence of spin-orbit coupling. Taking into account the symmetry analysis, we derive the dominant dependence of the Berry curvature dipole moment on the magnetic field components. Moreover,... 

Multivariate curve resolution (MCR) and multivariate clustering methods along with other chemometric methods are proposed to improve the analysis of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) fingerprints of secondary metabolites in citrus fruits peels. In this way, chromatographic problems such as baseline/background contribution, low S/N peaks, asymmetric peaks, retention time shifts, and co-elution (overlapped and embedded peaks) occurred during GC-MS analysis of chromatographic fingerprints are solved using the proposed strategy. In this study, first, informative GC-MS fingerprints of citrus secondary metabolites are generated and then, whole data sets are segmented to some...