This book provides informative, useful, and stimulating reading on the topic of organic sonochemistry - the core of ultrasound-based applications. Given the increasing interest in new and improved technologies, allied to their green and sustainable character (not always a valid premise), there is a great attraction for organic chemists to apply these protocols in synthesis and process chemistry. Unfortunately, as with other enabling technologies, many researchers new to the field have received a simple and dishonest message: just switch on! Therefore a significant portion of sonochemical syntheses lack reproducibility (surprisingly cavitation control and/or ultrasonic parameters are omitted) and the actual role of sonication remains uncertain. While this book does not provide a detailed description of fundamentals, the introductory remarks highlight the importance of cavitational effects and their experimental control. It presents a number of concepts of sonochemical reactivity and empirical rules with pertinent examples, often from classical and recent literature. It then focuses on scenarios of current interest where organic chemistry, and synthesis in particular, may benefit from sonication in terms of both chemical and mechanical activation. The "sustainable corner" of this field is largely exemplified through concepts like atom economy, renewable sources, wasteless syntheses, and benign solvents as reaction media. This book is useful for both researchers and graduate students, especially those familiar with the field of sonochemistry and applications of ultrasound in general. However, it is also of interest to a broader audience as it discusses the fundamentals, techniques, and experimental skills necessary for scientists wishing to initiate the use of ultrasound in their domain of expertise.

Microwave Chemistry has changed the way to work in chemical laboratories and is an established state-of-the-art technology to accelarate and enhance chemical processes. This book not only gives an overview of the technology, its historical development and theoretical background, but also presents its exceptionally broad spectrum of applications. Microwave Chemistry enables graduate students and scientist to learn and apply its methods successfully.

With increasing energy prices and the drive to reduce CO2 emissions, food industries are challenged to find new technologies in order to reduce energy consumption, to meet legal requirements on emissions, product/process safety and control, and for cost reduction and increased quality as well as functionality. Extraction is one of the promising innovation themes that could contribute to sustainable growth in the chemical and food industries. For example, existing extraction technologies have considerable technological and scientific bottlenecks to overcome, such as often requiring up to 50% of investments in a new plant and more than 70% of total process energy used in food, fine chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. These shortcomings have led to the consideration of the use of new "green" techniques in extraction, which typically use less solvent and energy, such as microwave extraction. Extraction under extreme or non-classical conditions is currently a dynamically developing area in applied research and industry. Using microwaves, extraction and distillation can now be completed in minutes instead of hours with high reproducibility, reducing the consumption of solvent, simplifying manipulation and work-up, giving higher purity of the final product, eliminating post-treatment of waste water and consuming only a fraction of the energy normally needed for a conventional extraction method. Several classes of compounds such as essential oils, aromas, anti-oxidants, pigments, colours, fats and oils, carbohydrates, and other bioactive compounds have been extracted efficiently from a variety of matrices (mainly animal tissues, food, and plant materials). The advantages of using microwave energy, which is a non-contact heat source, includes more effective heating, faster energy transfer, reduced thermal gradients, selective heating, reduced equipment size, faster response to process heating control, faster start-up, increased production, and elimination of process steps. This book will present a complete picture of the current knowledge on microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) of bioactive compounds from food and natural products. It will provide the necessary theoretical background and details about extraction by microwaves, including information on the technique, the mechanism, protocols, industrial applications, safety precautions, and environmental impacts.

With increasing energy prices and the drive to reduce CO2 emissions, food industries are challenged to find new technologies in order to reduce energy consumption, to meet legal requirements on emissions, product/process safety and control, and for cost reduction and increased quality as well as functionality. Extraction is one of the promising innovation themes that could contribute to sustainable growth in the chemical and food industries. For example, existing extraction technologies have considerable technological and scientific bottlenecks to overcome, such as often requiring up to 50% of investments in a new plant and more than 70% of total process energy used in food, fine chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. These shortcomings have led to the consideration of the use of new "green" techniques in extraction, which typically use less solvent and energy, such as microwave extraction. Extraction under extreme or non-classical conditions is currently a dynamically developing area in applied research and industry. Using microwaves, extraction and distillation can now be completed in minutes instead of hours with high reproducibility, reducing the consumption of solvent, simplifying manipulation and work-up, giving higher purity of the final product, eliminating post-treatment of waste water and consuming only a fraction of the energy normally needed for a conventional extraction method. Several classes of compounds such as essential oils, aromas, anti-oxidants, pigments, colours, fats and oils, carbohydrates, and other bioactive compounds have been extracted efficiently from a variety of matrices (mainly animal tissues, food, and plant materials). The advantages of using microwave energy, which is a non-contact heat source, includes more effective heating, faster energy transfer, reduced thermal gradients, selective heating, reduced equipment size, faster response to process heating control, faster start-up, increased production, and elimination of process steps. This book will present a complete picture of the current knowledge on microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) of bioactive compounds from food and natural products. It will provide the necessary theoretical background and details about extraction by microwaves, including information on the technique, the mechanism, protocols, industrial applications, safety precautions, and environmental impacts.

Design and Optimization of Innovative Food Processing Techniques Assisted by Ultrasound: Developing Healthier and Sustainable Food Products is a useful tool in understanding the innovative applications derived from the use of ultrasound technology. The book is a starting point for product development, covering technological, physicochemical and nutritional perspectives, as well as the reduction of food toxics and contaminants. Divided into three parts, sections cover ultrasound usage in obtaining functional foods, extracting bioactive compounds, the improvement of food quality, ultrasound use for the development of novel applications, and more. As the definitive resource in new innovative ultrasound-based emerging processes, this book is a necessity for food scientists and technologists, nutrition researchers, and those working in the food manufacturing industry.

Innovative Thermal and Nonthermal Processing, Bioacessibility and Bioavailability of Nutrients and Bioactive Compounds presents the implications of conventional and innovative processing on the nutritional and health aspects of food products. Chapters cover the relationship between gastronomic science, nutrition and food science in the development of healthy products, introduce the most commonly used conventional and innovative approaches to preserve foods and extract valuable compounds, describe how processing affects bioavailability and bioaccessibility of lipids, particularly fatty acids, protein, amino acids and carbohydrates, and discuss how processing affects bioavailability and bioaccessibility of minerals, water-soluble vitamins, and fat soluble vitamins. Final sections cover processing, bioavailability and bioaccessibility of bioactive compounds, describing how processing (conventional and non-conventional) is affecting to bioavailability and bioaccessibility of bioactive sulphur compounds, polyphenols, flavonoids, and bioactive peptides.