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Undergraduate Theses

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14583/13

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Adviser: search.filters.advisor.Martizano, Jay O.SDG: search.filters.sdg.SDG 9 - Industry, innovation and infrastructure

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    Antifungal activities of alginate films incorporated with lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) essential oil on sliced bread
    Bronzal, Lucile A. (Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Visayas, 2018-06)
    The accumulation of non-degradable and non-recyclable waste materials leads researches to venture on biopolymer films which have been regarded as the promising green substitutes of non-biodegradable plastic materials. However, food products can be subjected to contamination by bacteria and fungi. The addition of plant derived essential oil can control microbial contamination of foods by reducing the growth rate of target microorganisms or by inactivating microorganisms by direct or indirect contact. Incorporating antimicrobial compounds into films provides a different way to improve the safety of ready-to-eat foods. In this study, the efficiency of synthesized alginate films incorporated with lemon grass essential oil (LGEO) for antifungal activity on white bread was evaluated. Two sets of film were prepared the (1) LGEO - Ethanol incorporated films and (2) LGEO — β-cyclodextrin inclusion complex films via solution casting method. Furthermore, the FTIR analysis of the generated films was also assessed to identify the functional groups present in the film that facilitates its antifungal property. Experimental results showed that LGEO enhanced the antifungal properties in the films and significantly slowed down the propagation of fungi on white sliced bread. After two weeks of storage, all bread samples packed with various film samples showed fungal growth. It was found out that citral is the main component of essential oil which contributes to the inhibition of fungal growth. The incorporation of LGEO in the film decreased the O-H peak absorbance while the inclusion complex in the film increases the O-H peak absorbance and broad O-H peaks were also obtained.
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    Smartphone-based colorimetric reader for phosphate analysis
    Acasio, Christian Jake M. (Division of Social Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Visayas, 2017-06)
    A smartphone-based colorimetric reader (SBCR) was developed for the analysis of phosphate in water and soil. The developed smartphone-based colorimetric reader was designed to be portable and cost-effective tool for analysis of phosphates, thus help in addressing inaccessible laboratory-based analysis, as well as contribute to soil and water nutrient monitoring and management. The SBCR was composed of a colorimetric analyzer box, constructed from cardboards, a 96-well flat-bottom transparent microtiter plate that was used to hold the solutions and a bottom-based illumination was provided by a gadget. To help improve the performance of the SBCR, various physical factors were controlled. The focal length, the bottom illumination intensities and comparison of smartphones were all evaluated in order to determine at which conditions these operating parameters gave a better sensitivity. The operating parameters selected were 15 cm for the height between the smartphone and the 96-well MTP, 0% illumination setting, which was offered by the application software used to provide for the light from the gadget, and the usage of Phone A for the image acquisition of the analysis. The preliminaries gave a basis on the operating parameters used for the SBCR. For the phosphate analysis, the red channel was chosen for analysis of the image since at this channel the sensitivity was at the highest compared with the green and blue channels. The developed method was then evaluated for its analytical characteristics. It has a working range of 0.20-0.70ppm, LOD and LOQ of 0.06±0.18 ppm and 0.18±0.06 ppm, respectively, an intraday precision (%RSD) lower than 2% and inter-day precision of 1.46% (%RSD). In addition, the SBCR analysis application on water and soil samples showed no significant difference between the results from analysis done using the spectrophotometric method. The experimental results suggest that the SBCR method could be applied for phosphate analysis for both water and soil samples.