THE STUDY OF SURFACE DENSIFICATION AND TEMPERATE SUPERHEATED STEAM MODIFICATION FOR RUBBERWOOD

Kapok wood has high potential availability of wood. Although, the weakness is its low quality. However, kapok wood quality can be improved by compaction technology. This research aims to improve the physical and mechanical properties of wood with wood compaction technology, and to determine the effect of variations in the horizontal position of trees and the length of steaming on the mechanical properties of compacted wood. The method used was compaction method with steaming treatment. The study used three types of wood method variations, namely terrace wood, transition wood and sapwood and four types of treatment with steaming duration of 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes and without steaming. Wood testing on the physical properties of wood was guided by JIS Z 2102 (1957) and JIS Z 2103 (1957), while the mechanical properties of wood testing was guided by JIS Z 2113 (1963). Research showed that compaction on stretched wood with a target thickness of upto 2 cm improved the physical and mechanical properties of compacted wood. Steaming treatment prior to pressing for 90 minutes was effective in improving the mechanical properties of wood. The mechanical properties values improved by the increasing time of the steaming time before pressing the wood. The variation of wood position/parts affect the enhancement of the mechanical properties of wood in the parallel compressive strength test.

Although, wheat aleurone layer flour (WALF) is a good source of nutrients, it has certain disadvantages due relatively high levels of lipids and various of microorganisms and enzymes. Therefore, in the current study, the effect of superheated steam (SS) treatment on stabilization of WALF was investigated. This study aims to explore the effects of SS treatment on the degradation of free fatty acids of WALF under different conditions. The optimal process was obtained by an orthogonal optimization experiment, including optimized SS temperature, material moisture and treatment time. Results showed that the free fatty acids content of WALF significantly were decreased with SS treatment as the increase of treatment temperature, material moisture content and treatment times (p<0.05). Therefore, the optimum treatment conditions were selected during SS treatment. Compared with raw WALF, the activity of enzymes, total number of microbial colonies and phytate content in WALF were notably reduced after the SS of optimal condition. Nevertheless, its total dietary fiber content, insoluble dietary fiber content, pentosan content, total phenol content and total antioxidant capacity presented a remarkable increase (p<0.05).

In this study, wheat and oat bran fibres were used to investigate the potential beneficial prebiotic-enhancing effects of superheated steam (SHS) treatment. Following SHS treatment of fibres, in-vitro simulated gastric and intestinal digestion followed by batch culture fermentation was performed. 16S rRNA gene sequencing and short chain fatty acid analysis were conducted, which demonstrated that SHS treatment was associated with significant differences in beta diversity and the relative abundances of several microbial taxa. Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) revealed significant separation between SHS-treated oat and non-treated oat (p = 0.013), and between SHS-treated wheat and non-treated wheat following in vitro batch fermentation (p = 0.042). Abundances of Ruminococcus were found to be significantly higher by 1.09-log in SHS-treated oat when compared with non-treated oat while abundances of Escherichia_Shigella, and Alistipes were significantly lower by 1.47-log and 0.39-log, respectively in the SHS-treated oat samples than the non-treated oat samples (p = 6.85E-06, p = 0.002037, p = 0.002458; respectively). These data demonstrate that SHS treatment of dietary fibre enhanced its effectiveness to modulate the gut microbiome.Industrial Relevance: Superheated steam (SHS) treatment has emerged as an effective method to improve the shelf-life of grains by reducing lipid hydrolysis and oxidation. Our results revealed that SHS treatment of wheat and oat brans led to increased physiological and chemical properties including higher water-binding capacity, water-extractable arabinoxylan, and total phenolics as well as improvement in human gut microbiota. Our results suggest that this method could be implemented in the food industry in order to improve beneficial properties of oat and wheat brans.

This study was carried out to examine the effect of superheated steam (SHS) treatment combined with extrusion process on the physicochemical properties of extruded rice snack. Milled rice grains were heated for 2 min using the SHS at 200°C, 250°C, and 350°C, then processed into extruded rice snacks using a single screw extruder. Bulk density, hardness, water solubility index (WSI), and water uptake capacity of extruded rice snack were significantly influenced by the SHS treatment and temperature of SHS. Increasing SHS temperature resulted in extruded rice snack with a higher expansion, WSI, and water uptake capacity than those of the control snack. Meanwhile, hardness decreased greatly with increasing SHS temperature. The microstructure of extruded rice snack revealed that the sizes and thickness of air cells and air cell walls decreased after SHS treatment with increasing SHS temperature, resulting in better expansion and softer texture. Presumably, the influence of SHS treatment on structural changes was attributed to the increased number of micro-bubbles nucleated in the starch melt during the extrusion process.

How superheated steam treatment modifies the physicochemical, functional, nutritional, and anti-nutritional attributes: A case study on guar bean flour

Kenanga and sengon wood are known for their inferior properties, necessitating effort to enhance their quality. In Wood Industry, thermal modification was used to enhance wood properties especially dimensional stability. The objective of this research was to evaluated the effect of wood species and thermal modification on physical and mechanical properties of wood. The wood modified by steam treatment at temperature of 1260C at pressure of 0.14 MPa for 1 hour. The physical properties tested included density, moisture content, volumetric swelling, and anti-swelling efficiency. The mechanical properties tested were the modulus of elasticity and modulus of rupture. The mechanical properties of the wood were tested according to ASTM D 143-05 (1996), and all parameters were compared between the thermal-modified wood and the control. The results showed that the density and moisture content parameters were only influenced by wood species while thermal modification and interaction of wood species and thermal modification did not affect density and moisture parameters. Furthermore, heat modification significantly improved the dimensional stability of the wood, as evidenced by a decrease in volumetric swelling and anti-swelling efficiency value higher than 40%. Additionally, heat modification slightly enhanced the mechanical properties of kenanga and sengon wood as seen from the increased values of modulus of elasticity and modulus of rupture values.

The acid formed by thermal degradation of wood can autocatalyze its heat treatment. In this study, exogenous acid was introduced by impregnation into poplar wood to investigate its effect on the physical and mechanical properties of wood. Equilibrium moisture content (EMC), dimensional stability, mass loss (ML), color, modulus of rupture (MOR), and modulus of elasticity (MOE) of heat-treated poplar were tested under mild temperature (130–160 °C) for different pretreatment concentrations of aluminum chloride (AlCl3). The results show that the EMC of the heat-treated wood diminishes by 2.7%–47.8%, and dimensional stability improves significantly after AlCl3 impregnation pretreatment. The samples impregnated with 0.5 mol/L AlCl3 and heat treated at 160 °C achieved the best dimensional stability, which was better than for the samples only heat-treated at 220 °C. The color changed significantly as the impregnating concentration increased, achieving a color effect similar to that of wood only heat-treated at a high temperature such as 200 or 220 °C. Heat-treatment temperature under the same ML of wood samples was reduced, which also mitigated the reduction of MOR. MOE of heat-treated wood with 0.5 mol/L impregnation pretreatment was 11.4%–30.7% more than for samples heat-treated at 160–220 °C. After exogenous acidic AlCl3 impregnation pretreatment, the cell wall structure of the heat-treated wood was found to remain relatively intact. Thus, AlCl3 impregnating pretreatment exerted a substantial and beneficial effect on the physical and mechanical properties of poplar and achieved good performance of poplar wood treated at a mild temperature.

Effect of superheated steam treatment of carbon fiber on interfacial adhesion to epoxy resin

Candlenut wood is one of low quality wood species in term of strength and durability class of V-IV, so its utilization is limited. Efforts to improve physical and mechanical properties of wood are required. One way is using wood modification technology by oil-heat treatment. This research aim was to analyze the changes in physical and mechanical properties of candlenut wood after heating with oil. The stages of this research were sample pre-treatment, heating treatment and wood testing. Samples were pre-treated by heating gradually at 60°C and 90°C for 24 hours to avoid crack during treatment. The heat treatment was applied at several variation of temperatures, namely (160, 180, and 200)°C for 1 and 2 hours, respectively. Properties of wood were tested according to modified ASTM D143-94 standard. The Completely Randomized Design was used to determine effect of heat temperature and time on the wood properties. The results showed that heating with oil on candlenut wood gave a positive response, as evidenced by an increase in physical and mechanical properties of wood. Oil-heat treatment could be an effective method for improve properties of wood. The increases of specific gravity, MOE and MOR were ranged from (16.49 to 26.62)%, (1.25 to 13.61)%, and (4.37 to 10.15)%, respectively. The use of 160°C increased properties of wood with relatively higher compared to other temperatures in 1 hour. Longer heating times tend to reduce properties of wood.

The combination of surface densification and superheated steam treatment is an effective method to improve the mechanical properties and dimensional stability of low-density wood. The objective of the current work is to evaluate the effects of superheated steam treatment on the micromechanical behavior of surface densified wood. The microstructure, chemical composition, cellulose crystalline structure, and micromechanical behavior of surface densified wood under different superheated steam pressures were investigated. Results indicated that both 0.1 MPa and 0.3 MPa superheated steam treatments increased the elastic modulus and hardness of fiber cell walls in surface densified wood. However, the average creep ratio and maximum creep compliance J(50) of surface densified wood under 0.3 MPa decreased by 41.59% and 6.76%, respectively, compared with untreated wood. The improvement of elastic modulus, hardness and creep resistance of surface densified wood treated with superheated steam was associated with the increase of relative crystallinity (CrI) and crystalline size. In addition, 0.3 MPa superheated steam treatment displayed a better effect on the enhancement of the elastic modulus, hardness, and creep resistance of the fiber cell wall than 0.1 MPa superheated steam treatment.

The optimization of brown rice replacement ratio and superheated steam (SHS) treatment conditions in production of extruded rice snack for infants were conducted using a response surface methodology. Experiments were designed using a Box-Behnken design with three independent variables (brown rice replacement ratio, SHS temperature, and SHS time) and two response variables (hardness and water uptake). The second order polynomial model showed a satisfactory description of the experimental results. Optimal conditions for extruded snack with the lowest predicted hardness (2.84 kg/cm2) were 15.81% of brown rice replacement with SHS treatment at 279.59°C for 197.40 sec. Meanwhile, optimal conditions for extruded snack with the highest predicted water uptake (384.79%) were 17.18% of brown rice replacement ratio with SHS treatment at 274.52°C for 196.22 sec.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of superheated steam (SHS) treatment on the inactivation of an enzyme involved in the racidity of brown rice as well as the degree of rancidity during storage of brown. Brown rice was treated with SHS at temperatures of 160°C, 200°C, and 240°C, and the result showed that the degree of starch damage was higher in the brown rice treated with SHS at higher temperature. Lipoxygenase was inactivated by treating with SHS for 20 s at 160°C, 15 s at 200°C, or 5 s at 240°C. The acidity and sensory evaluation of the brown rice treated with SHS showed that the acidity was decreased as the SHS treatment increased and SHS temperature became higher. The result of the sensory evaluation showed a similar tendency. These results show that the SHS treatment has potential as a method for improving the brown rice storage quality.

Physical and mechanical properties of wood is one of the basic properties that need to be known in the selection of wood, because the physical and mechanical properties of wood are not the same height on the stem. Increased wood demand gives the opportunity to use wood that is not yet known for its marketing, one of which is Salam wood (Syzygium polianthum (Wight) Walp). The purpose of this research was to determine the physical and mechanical properties of Salam wood based on the height of the stem so that Salam wood can be optimally utilized by testing based on Classification SNI – 5 PKKI 1961. Methods of making test and test examples based on British Standard Methods No. 373-1957. The results showed that Salam wood has physical properties with an average brown colour, the moisture content 3,13 % , density 0,58 kg/cm2 , Depreciation 2,59 %. Salam has mechanical properties with an average height position stem from base to tip with Modulus of Elastiscity (MOE) 97.701,54 , Modulus of Rupture (MOR) 659,18 and Modulus Crushing Streang 342,86 . Salam can be classified into strong class III and based on its properties and mechanics, it is suitable for use as a lightweight construction and furniture.Keywords: Density, depreciation, MCS, MOE, moisture content, MOR

15 - Properties and utilization of wood

Dual purpose of superheated steam treatment: Inactivating surface pathogens of pork belly and replacing blanching