Quality changes in yakgwa (such as color, moisture contents, acid value, rheological properties, and viable cells) using different types of frying oils was examined for 5 weeks. During the storage period, the lightness and yellowness of all samples were increased and there was no significant difference in redness. After 5 weeks of storage, rice bran oil showed the least color difference. There was no difference in the moisture contents of all samples except for grape seed oil, while the moisture contents of yakgwa fried with grape seed oil was decreased. The acid value increased as the storage period increased regardless of the type of frying oil, and yakgwa fried with rice bran oil and grape seed oil showed a low acid value. The hardness was increased as the storage period increased, but there was no difference in the hardness between the samples. The adhesiveness and resilience were decreased and the chewiness was increased. The total cell count did not increase significantly as the storage period, and there was also no difference in the total cell count between the samples. There was a high level of yeast and mold in comparison to total cell count, and the colony of bacteria was not detected.

The O2 and CO2 concentrations in controlled atmosphere (CA) rooms are determined by the respiration of produce like apples and the airtightness of the CA room, with gas in the CA room controlled by O2 and CO2 removal as well as respiration (CO2 increase and O2 decrease). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of the gas exchange model for O2 removal, CO2 removal, the rate of O2 decrease and CO2 increase by respiration of apples, and airtightness of the CA room. It took 17.5 hours to reduce O2 concentration from 20.9% to 2.0% after loading 4.3 tons of Fuji apples into the CA room, which was 4.2 hours longer than the 13.3 hours of the model formula. After the CO2 concentration rose to 0.5% due to respiration, it took 4.7 hours to lower the CO2 concentration to 0.2%, which was 0.6 hours longer than that of the model equation. The rate of CO2 increase by respiration was 0.021%/ h, which was similar to the model equation (0.017%/h). Also after 4.7 hours, the O2 concentration decreased by 0.1% which was also in line with the model equation (0.13%/h).

The variations of internal temperature, relative humidity (RH) and gas concentration in the pallet modified atmosphere package (MAP), using polyamide (PA) film and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) film, were investigated to extend the shelf life of tomatoes and paprikas. The temperature and RH inside the MAP were higher than that in the cold room, but there was no water condensation inside the MA film. The ethylene concentration in the MAP was maintained below 10 ppm. Oxygen level was stabilized at 2 to 5% during the storage and carbon dioxide level was also stabilized at 15 to 20%. The weight loss of the MAP tomatoes and paprikas was lower than that of the control because the RH in the pallet MAP was higher than that of the cold room. The fungal decay rate in the pallet MAP was also lower than that in the control due to a low oxygen concentration rate. There were no significant differences in the soluble solids, titratable acidity and Hunter’s color, but differences did exist in the hardness between the MAP and the control. So, this pallet MAP method was effective at extending the shelf life of tomatoes and paprikas considering the weight loss, fungal decay and hardness.

In this study, we utilize the cross and partial correlation analyses in order to investigate the dependence of power energy consumption on the temperature. To this end, we use a time series data that consists of three attributes : an hourly measured electric power consumption, temperature, and humidity. We, in particular, divide the yearly data into monthly base, and estimate the cross correlation coefficients between all possible pairs of attributes for each monthly based data. We found that temperature and power consumption are negatively correlated in the winter; positively correlated in the summer. A similar trend was found between humid and power consumption. This implies that when temperature or humidity is relatively high or low, the power consumption increases due to the cooling and heating system at work. In contrast, the correlation between temperature and humid behaves differently from those between temperature and power consumption. These results can be used to effectively manage the power system.

We fabricated dual-phase free-standing polymeric membrane for high performance CO2/N2 separation, introducing amphiphilic, CO2-philic copolymer via one-step free radical polymerization, or (2-[3-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-hydroxyphenyl]ethyl methacrylate)-graft-poly(oxyethylene methacrylate) (PBE). PBE filler partially interacts with Pebax polymer matrix to generate the interconnected CO2 philic network, exhibiting a microphase-separated, or dual-phase behavior in Pebax matrix. The performance of CO2/N2 separation was increased according to the PBE content, with the maximum selectivity at 5 wt%. The enhancement of Pebax/PBE CO2-philic membrane was attributed to the formation of CO2-philic channel consisting of ether oxygens and triazole groups. The best performance was CO2 permeability of 175.3 Barrer and CO2/N2 selectivity of 48.2.

As ZIF materials have their unique properties such as high surface area, tunable pore structure, thermal and chemical stability, they can be used in gas separation. In this work, we synthesized ZIF-8 seed layer by combining ZnO coating on the support and the conversion synthesis of ZnO layer in H-mIm solution to ZIF-8 layer, followed by the secondary growth synthesis for ZIF-8 membranes. The effect of solvent on conversion seeding had been investigated to control the reaction rate combining the dissolution rate of ZnO and the crystallization rate. The optimum solvent combination (water and methanol) was studied according to the thickness of the ZnO layer used in the conversion seeding. The obtained membranes showed excellent performance for propylene/propane gas separation. The thicker the ZnO layer, the lower the permeability.