Cold Chain dynamics and insights into fresh fruit imports: A value stream map for analyzing operations, challenges, and opportunities for improving the global first-mile fresh fruit reefer cold chain - Case study Port of Hamburg

This master thesis explores how ports, such as Hamburg, are adapting their logistics to enhance supply chain efficiency, with a specific focus on the evolving global first-mile fresh fruit reefer (GFFR) cold chain. It discusses the use of value stream mapping (VSM) from an inside-out perspective to analyze operations, challenges, and...

From trash to treasure: Accounting for global unavoidable food loss and waste of vegetables and fruits and exploring valorisation strategies

Food loss and waste (FLW) generation is a global issue that has recently gained an increasing attention. It has previously been estimated that approximately one third of all food globally produced is wasted. Recently, other accounts have been made, for various food products and focusing on various geographical scopes, sometimes disaggregating...

Design of a baked good using food ingredients recovered from agro-industrial by-products of fruits

In the last few years, healthy foods have increasingly attracted consumers' interest, leading to an increase in sales worldwide. Using by-products from the agroindustry to produce healthy/fortified foods is a promising approach since peels and seeds of fruits have significant amounts of bioactive compounds. In this sense, this work evaluated...

Design and evaluation of a gripper for bunches of bananas in a supermarket environment

In this paper the first gripper that can grasp bunches of bananas is presented. Bunches of bananas are difficult to grasp by a mechanical gripper, as they vary in size and shape and are sensitive to damage caused by mechanical impact. In former research, single bananas have been grasped with pinching- or granular grippers. The gripper proposed...

Novel Twisting-Tube Gripper: Design and Evaluation for Blackberries

Fruit and vegetable production is increasing worldwide, and farmers currently face a tough challenge in finding enough agricultural workers. Automation of the labour-intensive task of crop harvesting could help fill in this gap between supply and demand. However, picking soft fruits is challenging, as they can be easily damaged if not carefully...

Solar-driven steam gasification of oil palm empty fruit bunch to produce syngas: Parametric optimization via central composite design

Oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) is an abundant waste that is commonly incinerated, causing environmental pollution. In this study, an alternative waste management approach was investigated to produce value-added syngas from OPEFB using solar steam gasification. The three operating variables were temperature (1100–1300 °C), H₂O...

Human Health and Ecosystem Quality Benefits with Life Cycle Assessment Due to Fungicides Elimination in Agriculture

Industrial agriculture results in environmental burdens due to the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. Fungicides is a class of pesticides whose application contributes (among others) to human toxicity and ecotoxicity. The European Union aims to increase organic agriculture. For this reason, this work aims to analyze climate change,...

Soft Robotic Grippers for Crop Handling or Harvesting: A Review

Nowadays, harvesting delicate and high-value fruits, vegetables and edible fungi requires a large input of manual human labor. The relatively low wages and many health problems the workforce faces make this profession increasingly unpopular. Meanwhile, robotic systems that selectively harvest crops are being developed. Whilst the moving platform...

Modeling heat transfer in the vegetation-soil continuum

This thesis contributes to the scientific underpinning of the battle against fruit frost. Fruit frost is the freezing damage to blossoms when in the growing season the night temperature drops below 0±C. This results in damaged or undeveloped fruits, and a yield loss for the fruit farmer. Several techniques against fruit frost have been developed...

Fruitful friction as a strategy to scale social innovations

New approaches to overcome complex societal problems of today are the need of the hour, especially to enable the transition to a sustainable future (Concilio & Tosoni, 2019). Here, social innovations present new ways to tackle global problems on a local scale; that when put together, can create a transformation on a systemic level while...

Anaerobic digestion of palm oil, ethanol, and tequila production by products: Effects of alkaline hydrothermal pre-treatment on sugars release and biogas composition

This study explored the interactions between alkaline hydrothermal pretreatment (AHPT) operational conditions temperature (°C), NaOH concentration (M) and residence time (min) on the compositional characteristics of the solid (SH) and liquid hydrolysate (LH) obtained from AHPT of sugarcane bagasse (SCB), empty fruit bunch (EFB) and agave bagasse...

Fruit in your food: Repositioning the perception of fruit in meals served by caterers

Throughout history, there have been different attitudes towards eating fruit in the human diet. Currently, fruit is mainly perceived as a snack, that is to be eaten as a separate piece. Various developments in the history of the Netherlands like industrialisation, emancipation and internationalisation, have contributed to this position. With the...

Why metaethics needs empirical moral psychology

What is the significance of empirical moral psychology for metaethics? In this article we take up Michael Ruse's evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism and reassess it in the context of the empirical state of the art. Ruse's argument depends on the phenomenological presumption that people generally experience morality as...

In Search of Sun: Solar Pretreatment to enhance the Biomethane Potential of Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) Fibres

In the past decades, fossil fuels have become an increasing concern, due them being a non-renewable energy source and due to the environmental concerns related to the production and use of this fuel. This has led to increasingly more research in the value of bio-sourced lignocellulosic biomass such as Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) fibres from the palm...

Fruit and vegetable packaging solution: A reusable and convenient packaging solution, for fresh fruits and vegetables

This thesis started with the question of ‘’What is the necessity of all packaging in food products?’’. The problem of packaging waste is undeniable, an example of the cause of packing to the environment is the ‘’plastic soup’’. Plastic packaging degrades over time, which produces microplastics. Microplastics accumulate in the environment and...

Towards a physics-based understanding of fruit frost protection using wind machines

Wind machines are used to prevent or mitigate the adverse effects of night frost in spring. These frost events occur during clear-sky, low-wind nights in which a thermal inversion builds up from the surface. The machines work by mixing and transporting warm air from aloft downward which consequently erodes the thermal inversion. Various studies...

Designing a low carbon footprint drum container

The fruit juice which is sold in our supermarkets, here in the Netherlands, originates from all over the world. The vast majority of juices are imported from abroad. Apple juice from China, orange juice from Brazil, pineapple juice from Ghana; juices travel a long way before we consume them. <br/><br/>The transport of juices, by sea, road and...

Ontwerpstudie ondergrondse fruitopslag in de Merwehaven te Rotterdam: Onderdeel van een studie naar het bouwen van industriële ondergrondse ruimten

De ontwerpstudie 'Ondergrondse Fruitopslag in de Merwehaven te Rotterdam' maakt deel uit van een studie naar het 'Bouwen van Industriele Ondergrondse Ruimten (BIOR)' van de gelijknamige deelprojectgroep van het LWI, het Land Water en Milieu Informatietechnologie programma. De deelprojectgroep BIOR is er op gericht een afwegingsmodel te...