Many factors in materials impact foods and beverages. These range from safety issues, such as microbiological contamination, to texture issues, such as the smoothness of peanut butter.
Rotary evaporators are often used to remove low boiling organic solvents, and the addition of vacuum can lower the boiling point. Nitrogen evaporators apply a steady stream of nitrogen to remove moisture. Centrifugal evaporators, ideal for high-volume sample processing, use vacuum centrifugation to evaporate samples
For the general public, the concern over food fraud revolves around headline-grabbing examples, such as melamine—an organic compound used in plastics—appearing in infant formula from China in 2008 and beef replaced with horsemeat in the UK in 2013.
Life sciences, health care, and chemical companies are the major end users of lab equipment. Cash flows of major companies within these sectors are increasingly subjected to higher scrutiny due to a rise in M&A activities and their increased investments in emerging markets.
Scientists from Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, can now detect gluten in any food and show which grain it comes from, making it easier for food companies to correctly label their products