<p>Fruits play a necessary role in the human diet, and their cultivation is important to the prosperity of any country worldwide. However, fruit waste generated in large quantities in agricultural value chain is normally used to feed animals or directly disposed to landfill, ending up with low economic value and a heavy environmental burden. Agricultural waste that contains significant amounts of bioactive compounds can be utilized as byproducts and valorized through bioactives recovery. Conventional bioactive compounds extraction includes intensive uses of organic solvents and also has relatively low efficiency. Therefore, an environment-friendly alternative with higher extraction efficiency is needed. Cold plasma can convert gaseous medium to a highly reacting state with low energy cost, generating reactive species that are able to disrupt cell structures as well as modify material surfaces. This study has developed an innovative cold plasma-assisted extraction technology to enhance the recovery of bioactive compounds from fruit processing byproducts. The objectives of this study are to examine the effects of dielectric barrier discharge plasma on fruit pomaces, in terms of (i) surface microstructure and properties, (ii) extraction efficiency of their bioactive compounds, and (iii) bioactives composition and nutritional value of their extracts.</p><p>High voltage atmospheric cold plasmas (HVACP) generated with different working gases (air, argon, helium and nitrogen) were applied on tomato pomace (TP). In addition to creating ruptures on TP epidermal cells, HVACP treatments were found to decrease the water contact angles of tomato peels and accelerate the drying of tomato fruits, indicating the formation of more hydrophilic surfaces. Helium and nitrogen plasmas-treated TP showed increased PC extraction yields by 10%, and all HVACP-treated samples exhibited higher AA and changes in their phenolic compositions.</p><p>Grape pomace (GP) from red wine production was treated by helium-HVACP for different time periods (5, 10 and 15 min). Similar cell structure disruption and surface hydrophilicity enhancement were observed, and the effects became more significant as treatment extended. HVACP treatment also increased the total phenolic content in GP extracts, by 10.9−22.8%, which contained a higher anthocyanin concentration and showed an improved AA (16.7−34.7%). Furthermore, competitive effects of HVACP treatment on PC extractability enhancement and their degradation were observed.</p><p>The results of this study have proved that HVACP-assisted extraction successfully improved the extraction efficiency of bioactive compounds from fruit pomace and enhanced the nutritional quality of their extracts. This novel technology is a promising method for valorizing different agriculture byproducts into functional food ingredients and nutraceuticals with high nutritional values, which thus can bring significant economic benefits to the agricultural, food and nutraceutical industries.</p>

<p>  </p> <p>Plastics are the most common polymers used in various industries. However, million tons of plastics are produced and disposed every year around the world, and part of them end up entering the environment and agricultural ecosystems in the form of microplastics. Microplastics have become an environmental and health threat to aquatic species and humans because they are small and can easily reach water bodies for municipal and agricultural uses. Microplastics have been traced in food commodities and products derived from animals and even found in bottles of drinking water. As an approach to permanently remediating microplastics, current microplastic degradation techniques, however, require high energy inputs and thus are generally not cost-efficient. High-voltage atmospheric cold plasma (HVACP) is a low-cost energy-efficient technology to produce highly reactive species that can induce physicochemical changes in polymers. This study, for the first time, used HVACP as a novel remediation strategy for microplastics. HVACP was generated by dielectric barrier discharge at 50 kV using oxygen, nitrogen, or their mixture as working gas. Two types of microplastics, polypropylene (PP) and low-density polyethylene (LDPE), were treated for 30 min, and the effect of 24-h post-treatment was also studied. The properties of HVACP-treated microplastics, including weight, particle size, crystallinity, melting point, carbonyl index (CI), and surface morphology, were comprehensively analyzed. HVACP treatments were found effective in degrading both PP and LDPE microplastics. A larger extent of degradation was observed with PP microplastics treated by O/N mixture plasma, but the nitrogen plasma-treated sample showed a higher degree of oxidation according to its CI. For PE microplastics, oxygen plasma caused more degradation, but post-treatment did not promote further oxidation. The results indicated two potential mechanisms for microplastic degradation by HVACP. LDPE microplastics were degraded by oxidative reactions caused by highly reactive oxygen species, and PP microplastics followed a hydrolytic pathway of degradation as they became more hydrophilic after HVACP treatment. This study proved that HVACP is a promising method for microplastic degradation, and thus has great potential for addressing the severe challenges of microplastics that the food and agriculture sectors are currently facing.</p>