Study of the distribution of water within a biscuit during cooling; effect on the checking and the breakage.

The fragility of biscuits yields checking (cracks) and eventually breakage, which originated mainly from heterogeneity in water distribution in the thickness dimension (surface vs centre) and also to the plan dimension (edge vs centre) of the product. The objective of the BRICE project is to study the impact of the distribution of water on the occurrence of checking and breakage (C&B) in biscuits, considering a round and thick biscuit and a rectangular and thinner biscuit presenting piercing points. C&B counting was performed over 15 days of storage (the time needed to reach stability).

Applying Raman spectroscopy to the assessment of the biodegradation of industrial polyurethanes wastes.

Polyether-based polyurethanes (PBP) are extremely problematic polymers due to their long persistence in the environment. Moreover, the assessment of PBP biodegradation remains biased due to the inability of conventional methods to determine how their diverse subunits are degraded. To improve our knowledge of PBP biodegradation, we used Raman spectroscopy to identify patterns of PBP biodegradation.