Plant product technology laboratory

This laboratory provides scientific and technical support in the study and research of postharvest, transformation and processing of vegetable products. It focuses its activity mainly on postharvest technology and culinary technology.

Research in post-harvest technology is aimed at the preservation of fruits, vegetables and edible carpophores and at obtaining new vegetable products. In this line, this laboratory provides support for physicochemical, nutritional and organoleptic characterization, validation of various strategies to prolong shelf life, evaluation of processing technologies to optimize organoleptic and nutritional characteristics, and the design and production of new products of vegetable origin.

In relation to research in culinary technology, this laboratory provides support for the study of the behavior of food components in culinary operations, as well as the characterization of the phenomena that take place during the application of different culinary techniques. Also in the research and development of new textures, new flavors in cooked dishes and new techniques applied to cooking.

For this purpose, this laboratory has the following equipment:

• Equipment for olfactometry: headspace solid phase microextraction volatile organic compounds extraction station (HS-SPME): heating plate OVAN MCG05E and block, holder SPME and SPME fibers from SUPELCO, coupled to HP-4890 gas chromatograph with FID detector and glass nose port for olfactometric detection of volatile compounds.
• Digitronic oven. J.P. Selecta®.
• Convotherm® steam/convection oven.
• FOSS SoxtecTM 205S fat extraction system.
• Food dehydrator with SEDONA® trays.
• SIEMENS® oven
• Bosch induction cooktop with attached thermal imaging camera TESTO 875
• Extraction fume hood: ST 1500. Burdinola
• Equipment for automatic determination of the oxidation stability of fats and natural oils or products containing fat: Rancimat 743. Metrohm.
• Texture analysis equipment: Texturometer TA XT plus. Texturelab.
• Halogen Moisture Analyzer: HR 73 Halogan Moisture Analyzer. Mettler-Toledo.
• Water activity meter: Novasina Labmaster.
• Vacuum packing machine VM 12. Orved.
• Gas (oxygen/carbon dioxide) analyzer: CheckMate 3.
• DBX-55A digital refractometer. Atago.
• Automatic titrator of acidity levels: Compact Titrator. Crison
• Rotary evaporator
• UV/Vis spectrophotometer: Thermo Spectronic Unicam UV-510 UV-Visible.

Chromatography area:

• Two HP4890 gas chromatographs, one with TCD detector and one with FID detector.

In addition, there are 3 refrigeration chambers (two of them with a capacity of 6 m3 and one with a capacity of 12 m3) and a climatic chamber with temperature and humidity control ICH750 from Memmert.