University of Jember

About: University of Jember is a education organization based out in Jember, Indonesia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Computer science. The organization has 3289 authors who have published 2920 publications receiving 11422 citations.

Smart packaging: sensors for monitoring of food quality and safety

Abstract: The development of chemical sensors and biosensors over several decades has been investigated resulting in novel and very interesting sensor devices with great promise for many areas of applications including food technology. The incorporation of such sensors into the food packaging technology has resulted what we call smart or intelligent packaging. These are truly integrated and interdisciplinary systems that invoke expertise from the fields of chemistry, biochemistry, physics and electronics as well as food science and technology. Smart packaging utilises chemical sensor or biosensor to monitor the quality & safety of food from the producers to the costumers. This technology can result in a variety of sensor designs that are suitable for monitoring of food quality and safety, such as freshness, pathogens, leakage, carbon dioxide, oxygen, pH, time or temperature. Thus, this technology is needed as on-line quality control and safety in term of consumers, authorities and food producers, and has great potential in the development of new sensing systems integrated in the food packaging, which are beyond the existing conventional technologies, like control of weight, volume, colour and appearance.

Sugar palm (Arenga pinnata (Wurmb.) Merr) cellulosic fibre hierarchy: a comprehensive approach from macro to nano scale

Abstract: Sugar palm (Arenga pinnata) fibre is considered as a waste product of the agricultural industry. This paper is investigating the isolation of nanofibrillated cellulose from sugar palm fibres produced by a chemo-mechanical approach, thus opening a new way to utilize waste products more efficiently. Chemical pre-treatments, namely delignification and mercerization processes, were initially involved to extract the sugar palm cellulose. Then, mechanical pre-treatment was performed by passing the sugar palm cellulose through a refiner to avoid clogging in the subsequent process of high pressurized homogenization. Nanofibrillated cellulose was then characterized by its chemical properties (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), physical morphological properties (i.e. scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis), and thermogravimetric analysis. The nanofibres were attained at 500 bar for 15 cycles with 92% yield. The results showed that the average diameter and length of the nanofibrillated cellulose were found to be 5.5 ± 1.0 nm and several micrometres, respectively. They also displayed higher crystallinity (81.2%) and thermal stability compared to raw fibres, which served its purpose as an effective reinforcing material for use as bio-nanocomposites. The nanocellulose developed promises to be a very versatile material by having a huge potential in many applications, encompassing bio-packaging to scaffolds for tissue regeneration.