The emergence of nanobiology has provided a brand-new platform for the development of food engineering. Nanotechnology makes genetic engineering more controllable. People can create a variety of nano-biological “products†that can be easily absorbed by the human body according to their own needs. Farming, forestry, animal husbandry, deputy and fisheries industries may also undergo profound changes. The food structure will also change with it. The use of nano-bioengineering and chemical engineering to synthesize “food†will greatly enrich the quantity and variety of food, and packaging and food machinery that are adapted to it will also come into being.
Because nano-ceramics have good wear resistance, high strength, and strong toughness, they can be used to make seal rings, bearings, etc. for cutting tools, packaging, and food machinery to improve their wear resistance and corrosion resistance. They can also be used for production. Surface coating for key parts of conveying machinery and boiling dry bed.
Tokyo, Japan, has successfully developed self-cleaning glass and self-cleaning tiles in the laboratory. There is a thin layer of nano-TiO2 on the surface. Under the irradiation of light, any substance that adheres to the surface, including oil, bacteria, etc., due to the catalytic effect of nano-TiO2, these hydrocarbons are further oxidized into gas or easily rubbed. Lost substance. TiO2 can be used to make packaging containers, food machinery boxes and production plants.
In Germany, a special non-polluting and wear-resistant transparent coating made of nano-silicon based ceramics is applied to objects such as glass and plastic. It has anti-fouling, dust-proof, scratch-resistant, abrasion-resistant and fire-retardant functions. It can be applied to the surface coating of parts of packaging and food machinery that are in direct contact with food.
Nano SiC and Si3N4 have strong absorption of infrared rays in a wide range of wavelengths, and can be used as infrared absorbing and wave-transmitting materials to make material films or fibers. The nano-Si3N4 amorphous block has selective absorption from yellow light to near-infrared light and can also be used for special window materials. The optical fiber made of nano-SiO2 has a transmission loss of less than 10dB/km to wavelengths above 600nm, and is made of nanometer SiO2 and nanometer TiO2 micron-thick multilayer interference films. It has good light transmission and strong infrared reflectivity, and it is traditional Compared with halogen lamps, it can save 15% of electric energy. These characteristics can be used in infrared drying and infrared sterilization equipment for food machinery.
Studies have shown that 30 to 40 nm TiO2 is dispersed into a resin to form a thin film, which becomes a UV absorbing material that has a strong absorption capability for light below 400 nm, and can be used as an optimal raw material for food sterilizing bags and fresh-keeping bags.
Nano-SiO2 photocatalytic degradation of organic matter water treatment technology without secondary pollution, in addition to a high degree of cleanliness, its advantages are: a huge surface area, can maximize the adsorption of organic matter on the surface; has a stronger ultraviolet absorption capacity, and therefore has The stronger photocatalytic degradation ability can quickly decompose the organic substances adsorbed on the surface. This provided strong technical support for food companies with large sewage treatment capacity.
Mesoporous solids and mesoporous complexes are attractive research subjects in the field of nanomaterials in recent years. Due to the high porosity of these materials (hole size is 2 to 50 nm) and high specific surface area, they are Filtration and catalysis have important application prospects. It also provides a broad space for the development of membrane filtration and sterilization equipment such as purified water and soft drinks.
The poor working environment of food machinery has a high requirement for lubricants, and lubricants are often easy to wear and easily pollute the environment. The size of magnetic particles in the magnetic fluid is only 10nm, so it will not damage the bearing, and the base fluid can also use lubricating oil. As long as a suitable magnetic field is used, the magnetic lubricating oil can be confined at the desired position to ensure the normal operation of the machine.
Nano magnetic refrigerants. The development trend of magnetic refrigeration is from low temperature to high temperature, forming magnetic nanoclusters. When the temperature is greater than 15K, the magnetic entropy change is higher than that of GGG (Gd3Ga5012), making it the best magnetic refrigerant in the temperature range of 15 to 30K. quality. In 1997, the United States used the magnetic system of magnetic resonance entropy change in the spin system to develop a magnetic refrigerator with Cd as a magnetic refrigeration medium. Compared with the common compressed gas cooling method, it has the advantages of high efficiency, low power consumption, low noise, small size, and no pollution. This opened up new avenues for food freezing and refrigeration equipment.
Rubber and plastic are raw materials for packaging and food machinery applications. However, rubber is usually added by adding carbon black to improve its strength, abrasion resistance and aging resistance. The product is black and is not suitable for use in food machinery. The advent of nanomaterials has solved this problem. The new nano-modified rubber has a significant increase in various indicators, in particular, three times the anti-aging properties, the service life of up to 30 years, and colorful, excellent color retention effect. Ordinary plastics have large output, wide application, and low price, but their performance is inferior to that of engineering plastics. Although the engineering plastics have superior performance, their high price limits their wide application in packaging and food machinery. The use of nano-materials to modify ordinary plastic polypropylene, to meet the performance indicators of engineering plastic nylon, and the process performance is good, low cost, can be used in large quantities.
The above has only listed nanomaterials in packaging and food machinery in only a few aspects, but it has fully demonstrated that nanotechnology and materials play a decisive role. It is believed that nanomaterials will be even more dazzling tomorrow under the efforts of the technical personnel of the packaging and food industry.