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Functional foods are foods that provide positive health effects apart from the provision of essential nutrients. Along with nutraceuticals, they represent the top trends in the food industry. Fruit wines are considered functional foods. When assessing the fruit wine quality, a wide range of descriptors are taken into consideration, namely physicochemical and sensorial properties of fruit wine. Furthermore, within the context of the new food products development (e.g. functional products), functional properties of fruit wines are also taken into consideration. Functional properties are determined by the content of the biologically active components, such as polyphenols, vitamins and micro-and macrominerals. It is also important to consider the food-safety issues regarding the fruit wines consummation, that is, the presence of pesticides, mycotoxins and biogenic amines in different fruit wines. This chapter aims to give an overview of various factors used to evaluate the quality and the functional properties of fruit wines.

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The underutilized biomass and different organic waste streams are today in the focus of research for renewable energy production due to the effusive use of fossil fuels and greenhouse gases emission. In addition, one of the major environmental problems is also a constant increase of the number of organic waste streams. In lot countries, sustainable waste management, including waste prevention and reduction, has become a priority as a means to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emission. To provide solutions for both energy-related and environmental tasks, application of biogas technologies is one of the promising solutions. This review is aimed to present conventional and novel biogas production systems, as well as purification and upgrading technologies, nowadays applicable in the large scale, with a special focus on the CO2 and H2S removal. It also gives an overview of feedstocks and prominent parameters for biogas production, together with the digestate utilization and application of molecular biology in order to improve the biogas production.

Various fungal species can degrade lignocellulolytic materials with their enzyme cocktails composed of cellulolytic and lignolytic enzymes. In this work, seven fungal species (Mucor indicus DSM 2185, Paecilomyces variotii CBS 372.70, Myceliophthora thermophila CBS 663.74, Thielavia terrestris CBS 456.75, Botryosphaeria dothidea JCM 2738, Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. langenariae JCM 9293, and Fusarium verticillioides JCM 23107) and four nutrient media were used in the screening for effective lignocellulose degrading enzymes. From the seven tested fungi, F. oxysporum and F. verticilliodes, along with nutrient medium 4, were selected as the best medium and producers of lignocellulolytic enzymes based on the determined xylanase (>4 U mg−1) and glucanase activity (≈2 U mg−1). Nutrient medium 4 supplemented with pretreated corn cobs was used in the production of lignocellulolytic enzymes by sequential solid-state and submerged cultivation of F. oxysporum, F. verticilliodes, and a mixed culture of both strains. F. oxysporum showed 6 times higher exoglucanase activity (3.33 U mg−1) after 5 days of cultivation in comparison with F. verticillioides (0.55 U mg−1). F. oxysporum also showed 2 times more endoglucanase activity (0.33 U mg−1). The mixed culture cultivation showed similar endo- and exoglucanase activities compared to F. oxysporum (0.35 U mg−1; 7.84 U mg−1). Maximum xylanase activity was achieved after 7 days of cultivation of F. verticilliodes (≈16 U mg−1), while F. oxysporum showed maximum activity after 9 days that was around 2 times lower compared to that of F. verticilliodes. The mixed culture achieved maximum xylanase activity after only 4 days, but the specific activity was similar to activities observed for F. oxysporum. It can be concluded that both fungal strains can be used as producers of enzyme cocktails for the degradation of lignocellulose containing raw materials, and that corn cobs can be used as an inducer for enzyme production.