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Citrullus colocynthis L. Schrader is an annual plant belonging to the Cucurbitaceae family, widely distributed in the desert areas of the Mediterranean basin. Many pharmacological properties (anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, analgesic, anti-epileptic) are ascribed to different organs of this plant; extracts and derivatives of C. colocynthis are used in folk Berber medicine for the treatment of numerous diseases—such as rheumatism arthritis, hypertension bronchitis, mastitis, and even cancer. Clinical studies aimed at confirming the chemical and biological bases of pharmacological activity assigned to many plant/herb extracts used in folk medicine often rely on results obtained from laboratory preliminary tests. We investigated the biological activity of some C. colocynthis stem, leaf, and root extracts on the mycotoxigenic and phytopathogenic fungus Aspergillus flavus, testing a possible correlation between the inhibitory effect on aflatoxin biosynthesis, the phytochemical composition of extracts, and their in vitro antioxidant capacities.

A metal container used for food packaging must preserve the food’s edibility characteristics for a long period of time. Lacquered tinplate is suitable for canning food provided that the cans are airtight.This article details a root cause failure analysis that was conducted utilizing a sample of tuna cans taken from an affected batch of one million units. Several examinations were carried out to identify the failure’s root cause: visual examination, SEM fractography, micro-hardness measurement, and microstructural characterization. The cracks are located in the HAZ of the welded zone. As a result of the examinations carried out, the authors were able to identify the cause of the primary failure. The identified fracture mechanism is that of stress corrosion cracking (SCC), due to both the aggressive environment (high water content in the oil) and the low lacquer adhesion caused by superficial welding irregularities

Problems associated with stress corrosion of tinplate cans for foodstuffs are occurring at an increasing rate. The appearance of stress corrosion usually entails heavy financial penalties and high risk to the food. Unfortunately, at present, no practical measures exist to counteract this phenomenon. Stress corrosion is a type of localised corrosion which develops by way of the simultaneous action of particular media, which, in the absence of stress, may be only mildly aggressive or even non-aggressive, and a stress which is lower than that required for purely mechanical cracking. The aim of the present work was to study the susceptibility of tinplate to stress corrosion in different test media simulating foodstuffs. To this end, two approaches were used: an electrochemical technique, fast and slow polarisation, and a dynamic-mechanical technique, the slow strain rate test. The results of both tests enabled identification of the environment-material combination most susceptible to this type of corrosion. In particular, it emerged that the most critical environment for the development of stress corrosion is a solution simulating meat products at pH 6, whereas the most sensitive material was found to be tinplate produced from single reduction continuous annealing steel.

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