Concern is expressed about 2 recent decisions on protective additives to flour and drinking water in the British Isles. The first, a joint proposal by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the Department of Health, stated that the fortification and restoration of flour with certain minerals (iron and calcium) and vitamins (thiamin and nicotinic acid) would no longer be compulsory. The second was a recent court ruling in Scotland (also the topic of a pending test case in England) that it was beyond the power of a local authority to add fluorine to the water supply. The potential danger to human health in these 2 instances is discussed in light of recent findings. (wz)

Water content quantification of raw polysaccharide materials for food processing is generally performed by gravimetric analysis or titrimetric methods, which are time- and energy-consuming, non-eco-friendly and sample destructive. The present study develops and validates a new approach, based on the use of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, resulting in a model of the water content of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) polysaccharides. Samples of CMC were exposed to different relative humidity conditions. Water content was determined by standard gravimetric methods (OIV-Oeno 404–2010) and compared with the area of FTIR absorption in the range 3675–2980 cm⁻¹, attributed to the stretching of OH groups. The strong correlation between gravimetric results and FTIR area (R² = 0.88) showed no signs of bias across the water content range. A cross-validation technique to predict the water content by band area was assessed obtaining a general equation: y = 2.12 x + 2.80 with a high repetitively and good prediction of the tested models.

Japan's Specifications and Standards for Food Additives, 7th Edition (JSFA-VII) does not set limits for total contents of water-soluble chlorides and water-soluble sulfates (water-soluble inorganic salts) in food color aluminum lakes (FC-Als). However, the regulatory limit is 2% in JECFA and CFR. We used column switching suppressor-type ion chromatography (CSS-IC) for determination of anions. The total contents of water-soluble inorganic salts in FC-Als (112 qualified samples) were determined using the modified CSS-IC from fiscal year 1998 to fiscal year 2003. Total contents of water-soluble inorganic salts in four samples exceeded 2%. From an international point of view, it is desirable that the total content of water-soluble inorganic salts in FC-A1 should again be regulated in Japan.

Chlorine is a widely used disinfectant and oxidant used for an array of municipal and industrial applications, including potable water, swimming pools, and cleaning of membranes. The most popular method to verify the concentration of free chlorine is the colorimetric method based on DPD (N, N-diethyl-p-phenylenediamine), which is fast and reasonably cheap, but DPD and its product are potentially toxic. Therefore, a novel, environmentally friendly colorimetric method for the quantification of residual chlorine based on the food additive pyridoxamine (4-(aminomethyl)-5-(hydroxymethyl)-2-methylpyridin-3-ol) was investigated. Pyridoxamine is a B6 vitamin with an absorption maximum at 324 nm and fluorescence emission at 396 nm. Pyridoxamine reacts rapidly and selectively with free chlorine, resulting in a linear decrease both in absorbance and in emission, giving therefore calibration curves with a negative slope. The pyridoxamine method was successfully applied for the quantification of free chlorine from 0.2 to 250 mg/L. Using 1 cm cuvettes, the limit of quantification was 0.12 mg Cl₂/L. The pyridoxamine and the DPD methods were applied to actual environmental samples, and the deviation between results was between 4% and 9%. While pyridoxamine does not react with chloramine, quantification of monochloramine was possible when iodide was added, but the reaction is unfavourably slow.

A rapid planar chromatographic method for identification and quantification of 25 water-soluble dyes in food was developed. In a horizontal developing chamber, the chromatographic separation on silica gel 60F(254) high-performance thin-layer chromatography plates took 12 min for 40 runs in parallel, using 8 mL ethyl acetate-methanol-water-acetic acid (65 + 23 + 11 + 1, v/v/v/v) mobile phase up to a migration distance of 50 mm. However, the total analysis time, inclusive of application and evaluation, took 60 min for 40 runs. Thus, the overall time/run can be calculated as 1.5 min with a solvent consumption of 200 μL. A sample throughput of 1000 runs/8 h day can be reached by switching between the working stations (application, development, and evaluation) in a 20 min interval, which triples the analysis throughput. Densitometry was performed by absorption measurement using the multiwavelength scan mode in the UV and visible ranges. Repeatabilities [relative standard deviation (RSD), 4 determinations] at the first or second calibration level showed precisions of mostly <or=2.7%, ranging between 0.2 and 5.2%. Correlation coefficient values (R >= 0.9987) and RSD values (<or=4.2%) of the calibration curves were highly satisfactory using classical quantification. However, digital evaluation of the plate image was also used for quantification, which resulted in RSD values of the calibration curves of mostly <or=3.0%, except for two <or=6.0%. The method was applied for the analysis of some energy drinks and bakery ink formulations, directly applied after dilution. By recording of absorbance spectra in the visible range, the identities of the dyes found in the samples were ascertained by comparison with the respective standard bands (correlation coefficients >or= 0.9996). If necessary for confirmation, online mass spectra were recorded within a minute.

In China, waste sorting practice is not strictly followed, plastics, especially food packaging, are commonly mixed in food waste. Supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of unsorted food waste was conducted in this study, using model unsorted food waste by mixture of pure food waste and plastic. Different operating parameters including reaction temperature, residence time, and feedstock concentration were investigated. Moreover, the effect of three representative food additives namely NaCl, NaHCO₃ and Na₂CO₃ were tested in this work. Finally, comparative analysis about SCWG of unsorted food waste, pure food waste, and plastic was studied. It was found that higher reaction temperature, longer residence time and lower feedstock concentration were advantageous for SCWG of unsorted food waste. Within the range of operating parameters in this study, when the feedstock concentration was 5 wt%, the highest H₂ yield (7.69 mol/kg), H₂ selectivity (82.11%), total gas yield (17.05 mol/kg), and efficiencies of SCWG (cold gas efficiency, gasification efficiency, carbon gasification efficiency, and hydrogen gasification efficiency) were obtained at 480 °C for 75 min. Also, the addition of food additives with Na⁺ promoted the SCWG of unsorted food waste. The Na₂CO₃ showed the best catalytic performance on enhancement of H₂ and syngas production. This research demonstrated the positive effect of waste sorting on the SCWG of food waste, and provided novel results and information that help to overcome the problems in the process of food waste treatment and accelerate the industrial application of SCWG technology in the future.

Bisulfite (HSO₃–)/Sulfite (SO₃²–) is widely used as a food additive, but excessive use often leads to serious consequences, so the detection of HSO₃–/SO₃²– is of great importance. In this paper, a novel 1,4-diethylpiperazine-modified coumarin-benzopyran derivative (probe QLP) has been synthesized and characterized. In PBS (10 mM, pH = 7.4), QLP displays good selectivity and is sensitive for HSO₃–/SO₃²– over various analytes with fluorescent “OFF–ON” rapid responding (2 min), long-wavelength emission (600 nm), and a detection limit of 177 nM. With the treatment of HSO₃–/SO₃²–, the color of the QLP solution obviously changes from blue-green to yellow, and the fluorescent color of QLP changes from colorless to amaranth. The fluorescence-enhanced mechanism is qualitatively evaluated by density functional theory calculations using the CAM-B3LYP/6-31G (d) method, which reveals that the photoinduced electron transfer leads to the fluorescence emission of the QLP-SO₃H adduct. Importantly, nontoxic QLP can be used to detect HSO₃–/SO₃²– in sugar, natural water samples, and living cells and localized to the mitochondria and monitor the mitochondrial HSO₃–/SO₃²– level.

In the present study, a well-defined set of chitosans, with different degrees of acetylation (DA) and degrees of polymerization (DP), were processed by solution electrospraying from a water-based solvent. The solution properties, in terms of surface tension, conductivity, viscosity, and pH, were characterized and related to the physico-chemical properties of the chitosans. It was observed that both DA and DP values of a given chitosan, in combination with biopolymer concentration, mainly determined solution viscosity. This was, in turn, the major driving factor that defined the electrosprayability of chitosan. In addition, the physico-chemical properties of chitosans highly influenced solution conductivity and results indicated that the chitosan solutions with low or low-to-medium values of conductivity were the most optimal for electrospraying. The results obtained here also demonstrate that a good process control can be achieved by adjusting the working conditions, i.e . applied voltage, flow-rate, and tip-to-collector distance. Finally, it was also shown that electrosprayability of chitosan with inadequate physico-chemical properties can be improved by solution mixing of very different kinds of this polysaccharide. The resultant electrosprayed submicron chitosan capsules can be applied for encapsulation of food additives and to develop bioactive coatings of interest in food packaging, where these particles alone or containing functional ingredients can be released from the package into the food to promote a health benefit.