Browsing by Author "Mahendra Gunjal"

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Edible Packaging: An Overview
(Springer Nature, 2022) Jaspreet Kaur; Mahendra Gunjal; Prasad Rasane; Jyoti Singh; Sawinder Kaur; Amrita Poonia; Prerna Gupta
Food packaging exhibits a significant role in chain supply and also is considered one amongst the essential steps in final process. The increased demand of customers for high-quality products with natural ingredients has forced the food and packaging industry to introduce the concept of edible packaging in themarket. Till date, a number of techniques have been optimized to preserve the food either by means of adding preservatives or by changing the nature of packaging material. Edible packaging aims to conserve the food quality along with increased shelf life. These are produced either from edible biopolymers, which can be proteins, lipids, polysaccharides (gums and carbohydrates), plasticizers or from food-grade additives. Edible packaging materials include edible coatings, films, pouches and sheets. Depending on the type of final edible packaging material, these can be used either alone or in combination as per the requirement of the food product to be stored in it. For instance, lipids or resins can be combined with polysaccharides or proteins to obtain the edible packaging material having properties that resist water penetration. The best edible film must be a good oxygen barrier, moisture barrier and aroma barrier. The edible film made of protein can be derived from various plant and animal sources such as grains, oilseeds, milk, eggs and other animal tissues. The mechanism of film forming includes drying and extensive interaction of polymer network either with dry or wet casting. At present, various active compounds like antioxidants, colouring agents, antimicrobials, flavours and nutraceuticals are being incorporated into the films to enhance its quality and stability. The concept of edible packaging seems to be one of the best alternatives to old synthetic plastics that cause severe environmental pollution. The present chapter explores the fundamental understanding about edible packaging and its construction. It highlights the kind of material employed for the construction of edible packaging and the considerations involved in its fabrication. Further, the chapter enlightens the current advancements of edible packaging research and industrial approach towards it.
Recent Trends in Membrane Processing of Whey
(Springer Nature, 2023) R. Sathya; Aishvina Singh; Prasad Rasane; Amrita Poonia; Jyoti Singh; Sawinder Kaur; Mahendra Gunjal; Jaspreet Kaur; Vishesh Bhadariya
Whey is a liquid fraction derived by separating the coagulum from milk, skim milk or cream and it is a valuable by-product of cheese manufacturing. Whey exhibits an excellent nutrient source, as it contains many classes of different-sized components like lactose, salt, residual casein, various soluble proteins, vitamins and minerals. Due to their high nutritional value, whey products like whey powder in form of whey protein isolate (less than 25% protein), whey protein concentrate (more than 90% protein), fractionated whey protein isolates, and whey butter are increasing in demand. Thus, for large-scale production of whey and whey products—membrane processing techniques are used. In comparison with traditional extraction methods like acidification and coagulation, these membrane processing techniques were observed not to destroy the micellular structure but one of the key issues is membrane fouling caused by the absorption of ions and proteins on membranes. To minimise the limitation of conventional membrane processes and traditional extraction processes, recent approaches integrate different membrane process techniques for the recovery of whey. Advanced membrane processing techniques like two-stage nanofiltration and ultrafiltration process, hydrophilic mod-ified UF membranes, hydrophobic membrane distillation, shear enhanced membrane filtration and transverse vibrating membrane filtration with modified membrane tubules developed. The decline in the fouling rate can be observed in shear-enhanced membrane filtration by applying a high shear rate (>105 /s) in two stages—the first adsorption fouling stage and the cake fouling stage. Single NF process with shear-enhanced membrane filtration is preferable for recycling and leads to lower energy consumption. The better anti-fouling performance of hydrophilic modified UF membrane made it preferable for recovering whey protein efficiently from dairy effluent. Fractionation of whey protein from a complex mixture using innovative membrane process techniques dual-grading pH-responsive membranes-sequential stepwise pH gradient (3.0–8.0) and membrane adsorption chromatography (macro-porous membrane) by coupling anion and cation membranes, both techniques recovered an individual fraction of protein with a purity of 90% or more. A transverse vibrational hollow fibre membrane can increase the transmission rate of whey protein, maintain the structure of the protein at low operating temperatures and improve the performance in fouling reduction. Membrane technology for defatting of whey uses a tubular membrane with a static mixer (vibration) which increases the efficiency of defatting without affecting the whey proteins and flux decline. High mineral content gives raw whey a salty flavour during the preparation of whey powders, while electrodialysis is one of the membrane processes that help in the desalination of whey and it further enables the use of desalted whey powders in various products. Electrodialysis may lead to protein denaturation when it is oper-ated at extremely high temperatures, thus its operating temperature should be around 5–60 °C. Cleaning membrane is one of the effective alternatives to reduce fouling, application of ultrasound at low frequency is reported to have higher cleaning efficiency than the normal application of chemicals like sodium hydro-oxide solution as it weakens the binds between membrane and foulants. This paper provides a detailed overview of advanced membrane processing techniques of whey, whey protein fractionation using membranes, integrated membrane tubules, membrane fouling and polarization reduction techniques, and various challenges and limitation due to membrane processing in whey. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.