Environmental impacts of food waste in Europe.

Approximately 88 Million tonnes (Mt) of food is wasted in the European Union each year and the environmental impacts of these losses throughout the food supply chain are widely recognised. This study illustrates the impacts of food waste in relation to the total food utilised, including the impact from food waste management based on available data at the European level. The impacts are calculated for the Global Warming Potential, the Acidification Potential and the Eutrophication Potential using a bottom-up approach using more than 134 existing LCA studies on nine representative products (apple, tomato, potato, bread, milk, beef, pork, chicken, white fish).

Variation across a wheat genetic diversity panel for saccharification of hydrothermally pretreated straw.

Background: Wheat straw forms an important, reliable source of lignocellulosic biomass for use in second-generation ethanol production. However, there is limited understanding of the variation in quality of straw from current breeding cultivars, and studies on such variation have generally employed suboptimal pretreatments. There is also a degree of confusion regarding phenotypic characteristics relevant to optimising the enzymatic saccharification of cellulose after suitable pretreatments for biorefining compared with those which determine good ruminant digestibility.

Comparison of saccharification and fermentation of steam exploded rice straw and rice husk.

Background: Rice cultivation produces two waste streams, straw and husk, which could be exploited more effectively. Chemical pretreatment studies using rice residues have largely focussed on straw exploitation alone, and often at low substrate concentrations. Moreover, it is currently not known how rice husk, the more recalcitrant residue, responds to steam explosion without the addition of chemicals.

Pectin extraction from pomegranate peels with citric acid.

Pectins were extracted from pomegranate peels with citric acid, according to a central composite design with three variables: pH (2-4), temperature (70-90°C), and extraction time (40-150min). Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to follow changes in material composition during the main steps of pectin extraction, and also to determine the degree of methyl esterification and galacturonic acid content of pectins produced under different conditions. Harsh conditions enhanced the extraction yield and the galacturonic acid contents, but decreased the degree of methoxylation.

Optimization of pectin extraction from banana peels with citric acid by using response surface methodology.

A central composite design was used to determine effects of pH (2.0-4.5), extraction temperature (70-90 °C) and time (120-240 min) on the yield, degree of methoxylation (DM) and galacturonic acid content (GA) of pectins extracted from banana peels with citric acid.