Background: Aspergillus niger is one of the most common fungal contaminants of food products, leading to several economic losses on fruit, vegetables and other food products during storage. Over the years, several new techniques have been developed to control fungal growth, including photodynamic inactivation, in which excitation of a photosensitizer in the right wavelength leads to ROS production and microbial death.Results: On this paper, curcumin was used as a natural photosentitizer against A. niger spores. Nanoemulsions were used in order to encapsulated curcumin and increase its water solubility. Results showed that spores inhibition could reach up to 80% after 3 min of irradiation while values for un-encapsulated curcumin were around 30%. Conclusion:Results presented show that nanoemulsions could be use to enhance the photoinactivation properties of curcumin, against fungal spores from A. niger. This type of process can be use for food decontamination and preservation.

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En este trabajo se realizó la caracterización del almidón de plátano pompo rayado extraído a través del método húmedo. El material obtenido se caracterizó de acuerdo con sus propiedades fisicoquímicas como contenido de humedad, fibra cruda y relación amilosa/amilopectina y adicionalmente se estudiaron sus propiedades funcionales: índice de Blancura (IB), índice de absorción de agua (IAA), índice de solubilidad en agua (ISA) y el poder de hinchamiento (PH). Los resultados indican que porcentaje de amilosa fue aproximadamente del 30,2 %, porcentaje dentro de encontrado para musáceas, pues, el contenido de amilosa depende del origen botánico. Por su parte, presenta un contenido de fibra alto encontrándose en 6,68%, superior a lo encontrado para otras variedades de plátano, las cuales se encuentran entre 2.5 – 4,0%. El estudio de las propiedades funcionales del material obtenido evidencia un índice de blancura mayor en comparación con las otras musáceas. Los valores para IAA que son aceptados por la FAO oscilan entre 0,82 y 15,52. Sin embargo, para los ISA se encontraron índices bajos cercanos a 0.333. El PH es un parámetro que va de la mano con el IAA en consecuencia, presenta el mismo comportamiento, con lo cual se pudo establecer que el almidón a tratar se encontró dentro de los rangos considerándose de buena calidad.

Silver nanoparticles (AgNps) are known for their antimicrobial activity and other physicochemical properties that can be applied in several fields. Most of their synthesis methods include chemical reduction and the use of stabilizing agents such as starch. In recent years, several green methods have been developed such as using carbohydrates as reducing agents. On the other hand, starch is a semi crystalline structure formed by mixtures of the linear glucan, amylose and the branched glucan amylopectin. In this work we studied the effect of the semi crystalline structure on the physicochemical properties (particle size and surface plasmon resonance). Three types of starch were selected (corn, potato and banana) representing the three types of semi crystalline structures of the starch granule (A, B and C). Results showed that banana starch allowed larger particle sizes and broader size distribution, while there was not significant difference between nanoparticles stabilized with A and B type starches.