In recent years there has been considerable interest in the development of microwave-based food processing technologies. Microwave radiation is considered to have both thermal and non-thermal effects. The thermal effects are related to the heat generated by the absorption of microwave energy by water or by organic molecules, but very little is known about the mechanisms involved in the putative non-thermal effects. It has been postulated that the latter could involve a direct energy transfer from the electromagnetic field to the vibrational modes of macromolecules, altering their conformation. In the present study, the non-thermal effects induced upon irradiation of protein solutions with microwave energy were investigated by employing Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, circular dichroism, and fluorescence spectroscopy to elucidate the unfolding pathways of hemoglobin and beta-lactoglobulin (5% in D2O) subjected to either microwave irradiation (2450 MHz) or conventional heating. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.81583 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Al-Jundi, Abdul Nasser |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002211283, proquestno: AAIMR12386, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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