Awaking the Vacuum in Relativistic Stars

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

INFLUENCE of ENCAPSULATING MATERIALS on WATER SORPTION ISOTHERMS of VACUUM-DRIED PERSIMMON PULP POWDER

Water sorption isotherms for vacuum-dried persimmon pulp (PP) powder were determined in the temperature range of 20-50C, and the effects of maltodextrin (MD) or gum arabic (GA) addition on the water sorption behavior of the dried powders were analyzed. Several models were evaluated to fit the experimental data and the Guggenheim-Anderson-de Boer model was selected as the most adequate to describe the observed behavior. Addition of encapsulants affected the isotherms: at the same water activity, PP powder with added GA (PP + GA) or MD (PP + MD) presented lower equilibrium water content than pure PP and were less affected by temperature variations. Samples of PP + MD presented lower equilibrium moisture content than those of PP + GA. The isosteric heats of sorption of pulp powders with encapsulants were higher (less negative) than those of PP, suggesting that there are more active polar sites in PP than in pulp powder containing encapsulants.PRACTICAL APPLICATIONSThe choice of persimmon to carry out this work was due to the large persimmon production available in Brazil; moreover, persimmon pulp is rich in vitamin C, vitamin A and iron, as well as in phenolic compounds. Drying of fruit pulps with high sugar content presents technical difficulties because the hygroscopicity and thermoplasticity of the resulting powders when exposed to high temperature and relative humidity. For this reason, addition of high-molar-mass biopolymers, such as maltodextrin or gum arabic, is a strategy to aid drying and to improve storage stability. Knowledge of water sorption isotherms and net isosteric heats of sorption is important to various food processing operations, including drying, storage and packaging. They are useful in calculating time and energy consumptions during drying, modeling moisture changes during storage and predicting shelf life of food products.

Role of enthalpy and entropy in moisture sorption behavior of pineapple pulp powder produced by different drying methods

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Direct in situ observation of the electron-driven synthesis of Ag filaments on α-Ag2 WO4 crystals

In this letter, we report, for the first time, the real-time in situ nucleation and growth of Ag filaments on α-Ag2 WO4 crystals driven by an accelerated electron beam from an electronic microscope under high vacuum. We employed several techniques to characterise the material in depth. By using these techniques combined with first-principles modelling based on density functional theory, a mechanism for the Ag filament formation followed by a subsequent growth process from the nano-to micro-scale was proposed. In general, we have shown that an accelerated electron beam from an electronic microscope under high vacuum enables in situ visualisation of Ag filaments with subnanometer resolution and offers great potential for addressing many fundamental issues in materials science, chemistry, physics and other fields of science.