Aqua Technica

La Universidad Técnica de Manabí lanza la nueva revista AQUA TECHNICA, Revista Iberoamericana de Acuicultura. Dicha publicación cuenta con el apoyo de la Red AQUACIBUS a la que pertenece nuestro grupo de investigación y que está liderada por la Universidad de Vigo.

Desde aquí os invitamos a participar en la misma y darle la mayor difusión posible. Así mismo queremos expresar nuestros mejores deseos al Prof. Carlos Lodeiros, impulsor de esta importante iniciativa.

Interaction of Caffeic Acid with SDS Micellar Aggregates

Molecules 2019, 24(7), 1204

DOI: 10.3390/molecules24071204

Micellar systems consisting of a surfactant and an additive such as an organic salt or an acid usually self-organize as a series of worm-like micelles that ultimately form a micellar network. The nature of the additive influences micellar structure and properties such as aggregate lifetime. For ionic surfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), CMC decreases with increasing temperature to a minimum in the low-temperature region beyond which it exhibits the opposite trend. The presence of additives in a surfactant micellar system also modifies monomer interactions in aggregates, thereby altering CMC and conductance. Because the standard deviation of β was always lower than 10%, its slight decrease with increasing temperature was not significant. However, the absolute value of Gibbs free enthalpy, a thermodynamic potential that can be used to calculate the maximum of reversible work, increased with increasing temperature and caffeic acid concentration. Micellization in the presence of caffeic acid was an endothermic process, which was entropically controlled. The enthalpy and enthropy positive values resulted from melting of “icebergs” or “flickering clusters” around the surfactant, leading to increased packing of hydrocarbon chains within the micellar core in a non-random manner. This can be possibly explained by caffeic acid governing the 3D matrix structure of water around the micellar aggregates. The fact that both enthalpy and entropy were positive testifies to the importance of hydrophobic interactions as a major driving force for micellization. Micellar systems allow the service life of some products to be extended without the need to increase the amounts of post-harvest storage preservatives used. If a surfactant is not an allowed ingredient or food additive, carefully washing it off before the product is consumed can avoid any associated risks. In this work, we examined the influence of temperature and SDS concentration on the properties of SDS–caffeic acid micellar systems. Micellar properties can be modified with various additives to develop new uses for micelles. This allows smaller amounts of additives to be used without detracting from their benefits.

Dissipation of Three Fungicides and Their Effects on Anthocyanins and Color of Monastrell Red Wines

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2019, 20(6), 1447

DOI: 10.3390/ijms20061447

The effect of fungicides on fermentation is of paramount importance to control the quality and safety of wines. In this work, the quality (enological parameters, color, phenolic content, antioxidant activity, and fungicide residues) of wines from Monastrell grapes fortified with iprovalicarb, mepanipyrim, and tetraconazole fungicides was evaluated. Along the winemaking process, initial residues of mepanipyrim and tetraconazole were removed in more than 90% while the dissipation of iprovalicarb was around 73%. Significant statistical differences were found in the presence of iprovalicarb and mepanipyrim residues, especially at the highest concentration assayed. For both fungicides, increases in the volatile acidity (between 4 and 8.6 times), the lactic acid content (between 8.6 and 20.5 times), the percentage of polymeric anthocyanins (between 1.3 and 1.7 times), and also a slight increase of the total phenolic index and the total anthocyanin content determined by spectrophotometry were observed. On the contrary, the total monomeric anthocyanins content decreased about 16.3% and 28.6% in the presence of iprovalicarb and mepanipyrim, respectively. These results could be related to a higher development of acetic acid or lactic bacteria in the presence of these fungicides. The color of the final wines was also different in comparison with the control, with a higher yellow component, color intensity, tonality, and hue angle because of pH changes in the medium. Tetraconazole fermentations had a more similar trend to the control wine, probably due to the lower concentration of this fungicide in the grape must at the initial time. No effects on the antioxidant activity was observed for any of the target fungicides. A multivariate statistical analysis was done to view the interrelationships between different variables (color and anthocyanins profile). The obtained model allowed the wines to be separated according to the fungicide treatment applied.