Estimation of dielectric constant of oil solution in the quality analysis of heated vegetable oil

Fully Biodegradable Packaging Films for Fresh Food Storage Based on Oil-Infused Bacterial Cellulose

Fully biodegradable packaging materials are demanded to resolve the issue of plastic pollution. However, the fresh food storage performance of biodegradable materials is generally much lower than that of plastics due to their high permeability, microbial friendliness, and limited stretchability and transparency. Here a biodegradable packaging material is reported with high fresh food storage performance based on an oil-infused bacterial cellulose (OBC) porous film. The oil infusion significantly improved cellulose's food-keeping performance by reducing its gas permeability, increasing its stretchability and transparency, and enabling the active release of green vapor-phase preservative molecules, while maintaining its intrinsically high degradability. Strawberries stored in a container with the OBC lid at 23 °C after 5 days exhibited a moldy rate of 0%, in contrast to the 100% moldy rate of those stored by poly(ethylene). Enhanced storage performance is also obtained on tomatoes, pork, and shrimp. The OBC film is naturally degraded after being buried in wet soil at 30 °C for 9 days, identical to the degradation rate of bacterial cellulose. The liquid seal strategy broadly applies to different celluloses, providing a general option for developing cellulose-based biodegradable packaging materials.

Rapid quantitative evaluation of total polar materials (TPM) in frying oil based on an "off-on" fluorescence viscosity response probe

The content of total polar material (TPM) is considered as a comprehensive indicator to evaluate the quality of edible oils which should be discarded and no longer be used when TPM content exceeding 27 %. Nevertheless, there is currently a lack of a convenient and efficient TPM detection method, which is a meaningful challenge. With the increase of TPM content, the viscosity of frying oil grows, and the two maintain a satisfactory positive correlation. Consequently, an "off-on" fluorescence probe TCF-PR method based on viscosity-response has been developed. There exists a good linear relationship between the fluorescence intensity of the probe and the TPM content of soybean oil ((R2 = 0.9936) and salad oil (R2 = 0.9878), accompanying with the advantage of fast response (3 s), which means the rapid detection of TPM can be realized to determine the quality of frying oil in the field of food safety.

Electrostatic field as an emergent technology in refining crude oils: a review

Vegetable oils and fatty acid esters (FAEs) are commonly used in various industrial and commercial applications. However, the presence of contaminants in these oils can severely affect their functionality and suitability. Conventional refining techniques for vegetable oils typically involve degumming, neutralization, bleaching and deodorization. Meanwhile, refining of FAEs often utilize wet or dry washing processes. These are often resource-intensive, producing substantial waste products, causing neutral oil loss, and can also result in the loss of micronutrients. To address these challenges, researchers have explored the use of nano-adsorbents and electrostatic field (E-field) technologies as alternatives in purifying industrial dielectric oils by removing polar particles and contaminants. Nano-adsorbents demonstrated increased efficiency in removing polar contamination while minimizing neutral oil loss. However, removal of these spent adsorbents can be challenging due to their nano-size, and physicochemical properties. The use of these materials combined with E-field technologies offers a novel and sustainable solution for removing spent nano-adsorbents and contaminants. This review provides an overview of current traditional and novel refining technologies for vegetable oils and FAEs, including their associated limitations. Compared to conventional methods, E-field treatment offers several advantages, making it an attractive alternative to conventional approaches in food processing and oil refining.

Understanding the variations in dielectric properties of mustard (Brassica nigra L.) and argemone (Argemone mexicana) oil blends at different temperatures

Mustard oil is the most commonly adulterated edible oil, invariably with argemone oil. This study was aimed to develop a parallel plate capacitive sensor for measurement of dielectric properties of pure mustard oil, pure argemone oil and their blends (25, 50 and 75%) at five levels of varying temperature (10 to 50 °C). The effect of blend ratio and temperature on the selected dielectric properties of oil-capacitance (C), dielectric loss tangent (tanδ), dielectric constant ( ε ' ), dielectric loss factor ( ε ″ ) and electrical conductivity (σ) were investigated. It was observed that composition of the individual oils in terms of moisture and fatty acids influenced the physical and dielectric properties. The sensor was used to relate the dielectric properties of oil samples with blend ratio and temperature by means of statistically significant (p < 0.05) and robust (R 2 > 0.8) multiple linear regression model. The effect of temperature on C and ε ' was negative, while it was otherwise for tanδ, ε ″ and σ. Increase in argemone oil content in the blends, increased the dielectric measures due to the associated changes in the physical and chemical properties. The capacitive sensor could distinctly identify mustard oil, argemone oil and its blends on the basis of dielectric properties.

Characterization and Modeling Quality Analysis of Edible Oils Using Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy

The dielectric characteristics of six culinary oils were measured over the frequency range of 0.01 Hz–100 kHz. The results showed that the dielectric constants of oils had the same frequency relationship (i.e., they decreased with increasing frequency). The dielectric constants at lower frequencies for olive oil A, olive oil B, sesame oil, Nigella sativa, sunflower oil, and corn oil are approximately 2.75, 2.5, 2.0, 1.75, 1.5, and 0.9. An FT-IR analysis showed that the spectral differences were very small, because most vegetable oils contain the same type of fatty acids. The model built using COMSOL Multiphysics for the potential and electric field distributions for different oils and used to calculate the dielectric constant was simulated under various conditions in the AC/DC module. The model results were compared with the experimental results, which showed satisfactory convergence between them. The experimental and model results obtained in this study could be useful for evaluating the edible oil quality.

Microfluidic Microwave Sensor Loaded with Star-Slotted Patch for Edible Oil Quality Inspection

In this paper, we present a new microfluidic microwave sensor loaded with a star-slotted patch for detecting the quality of edible oil. The relative dielectric permittivity and the quality of edible oil will change after being heated at a high temperature. Therefore, the quality of edible oil can be detected by measuring the relative dielectric permittivity of edible oil. The sensor is used to determine the edible oil with different dielectric permittivity by measuring the resonance frequency offset of the input reflection coefficient, which operates at 2.68 GHz. This sensor is designed based on a resonant approach to provide the best sensing accuracy and is implemented using a substrate integrated waveguide structure combined with a pentagonal slot antenna operating at 2.3~2.9 GHz. It can detect greasy liquids with the real part of the complex permittivity ranging from two to three.

Microwave resonator can help to predict oxidative stability in C18-based vegetable oils

Effects of moisture content, degree of oxidation, degree of unsaturation of fatty acid compositions in C18-based edible oils were determined by a microwave resonator in the range of 0-4.4 GHz. Moisture content and degree of oxidation in corn oil made difference in signal intensity at 1.7-1.9 GHz and 1.0-1.2 GHz, respectively without uniform trend in signal intensity. Degree of unsaturation of C18-based edible oils including corn, sesame, soybean, olive, perilla, and flaxseed oils provided difference in 3.0-3.1 GHz with a dependent manner of degree of unsaturation. Average of signal intensity (ASI) in 3.0-3.1 GHz had high correlation (R² > 0.93) to the degree of unsaturation in edible oils. Oils with high oleic acid had relatively low ASI while those with high linolenic acid had high ASI value. Oxidative stability of C18-based edible oils can be categorized successfully without fatty acid analysis using a microwave resonator.

Research on a high-sensitivity asymmetric metamaterial structure and its application as microwave sensor

In this paper, an Asymmetric Electric Split-Ring Resonator (AESRR) metamaterial structure is proposed to explore the interaction between metamaterials and electromagnetic waves with the influence of Fano resonance on electromagnetic properties. With the symmetry of basic electric Split-Ring Resonator (eSRR) being broken, a new Fano resonant peak appears at around 11.575 GHz and this peak is very sensitive to the dielectric environment. Based on the proposed high sensitivity of AESRR, a microwave sensor based on a 13 × 13 arrays of AESRR was designed and verified using printed circuit board (PCB) technology. T-shape channel was integrated to the sensor by grooving in the FR-4 substrate which improved the integration and provided the feasibility of liquids detection. Seven organic liquids and four dielectric substrates are measured by this sensor. The measured results show the transmission frequency shifts from 11.575 to 11.150 GHz as the liquid samples permittivity changes from 1 to 7 and the transmission frequency shifts from 11.575 to 8.260 GHz as the solid substrates permittivity changes from 1 to 9. The results have proven the improved sensitivity and the larger frequency shift ∆f on material under test (MUTs) compared with the conventional reported sensor. The relative permittivity of liquid samples and solid samples can be obtained by establishing approximate models in CST, respectively. Two transcendental equations derived from measured results are proposed to predict the relative permittivity of liquid samples and solids samples. The accuracy and reliability of measured results and predicted results are numerically verified by comparing them with literature values. Thus, the proposed sensor has many advantages, such as low-cost, high-sensitivity, high-robustness, and extensive detecting range, which provided a great potential to be implemented in a lab-on-a-chip sensor system in the future.

Dielectric Properties and Dipole Moment of Edible Oils Subjected to 'Frying' Thermal Treatment

The dielectric properties of six refined edible oils with different fatty-acid compositions were determined for oils incubated at 180 °C up to 40 h. The oil degradation was evaluated by the dielectric dispersion and dielectric loss in the frequency range from 40 Hz to 2 MHz at 25 °C, refractive index, density, saponification number, and specific absorption coefficient at 232 and 268 nm. The dependence of the dielectric properties on frequency has been evaluated with Corach, Cole-Cole, and the universal power law models, giving the novel strategies for the interpretation of the dielectric spectra of thermally treated oils. The derived parameters-the dielectric constant, the electrical conductivity, the relaxation time τ and the exponents α, p, and n-are discussed with respect to the increased oxidation evidenced by specific absorption coefficients and polar products, as measured by the dielectric constant of the thermally treated oils. The specific refraction, specific polarization, orientation polarization, and dipole moment were determined using Lorenz-Lorentz, Debye and Onsager relationship. All above parameters obtained increased during the thermal treatment, except specific refraction, the electrical conductivity and the relaxation time. The dielectric constant-macroscopic parameter was compared with microscopic parameter polarization and dipole moment; the linear dependence was found to be .

Effectiveness of the rapid test of polar compounds in frying oils as a function of environmental and compositional variables under restaurant conditions

Effect of fried food, oil type, moisture, fatty acid and molecular distribution on the effectiveness of rapid test of Total Polar Compounds (TPC) in frying oil based on dielectric constant was explored. Effects of all factors were compared and found to be significant (P < 0.05). Throughout the life cycle of frying oil, its rapid results were correlated well with those of conventional chromatography (Y = 0.7625X + 3.681, R² = 0.8734). But the discrepancy was found within selected TPC ranges of 0%-10% and 20%-30%. According to the definition of TPC, three potential reasons for the high TPC values of fresh oils were discussed. For the deteriorated oils, the triglyceride dimers, mono-unsaturated and di-unsaturated fatty acids were found to be the main compositional factors by stepwise multivariate regression analysis. Pieces of advice about the operation guideline, internal control indices, calibration, reference oil, sensor, and detection range were proposed for instrument users and producers.

Modelling, characterization and quality analysis of heated oil using electric moment and chemical properties

The effect of temperature (30-90 °C) on the electrical parameter: dielectric constant (ε_r) of Sunflower, Olive and Corn oil exposed to three cycles of heating to frying temperature (175 ± 5 °C) was studied to exhibit the quality analysis of oil. Dielectric constant of heated oil was measured using designed inter-digitated electrode capacitor at different frequency (10 kHz-5 MHz) and temperature (30-90 °C). Dielectric constant (ε_r) of oil samples increases with cycles of heating. Variation of dielectric constant with frequency was premeditated using quadratic equation and the dependency factor was observed to be R² > 0.914. Chemical kinetic dielectric constant with temperature was studied using Arrhenius law and observed that activation energy increases with cycles of heating. Andrade's equation was also fitted with the variation of ε_r with temperature and the dependency factor (R² between 0.978 to 0.999) was observed to be highly correlated. Experiential physical properties like density, refractive index and ε_r were significantly correlated with the pragmatic peroxide value. The observed relation between ε_r with chemical property divulges the suitability of measured dielectric constant in real time and continuous evaluation of edible oil quality analysis in food industry.