The production of environmentally friendly, sustainable, chemical-free food continues to challenge the food industry, spurring on investigations into alternative food processing techniques that are more sophisticated and diverse than current practices. Exploring one of these emerging solutions, Ultraviolet Light in Food Technology: Principles and Applications incorporates the fundamentals of continuous and pulsed UV light generation and propagation; current food regulations; recommendations for optimal UV reactor design, selection, and validation; information on both commercially available and under-development UV sources; and the outlook for future food applications. After reviewing essential terms, definitions, and current applications, the book emphasizes the need to properly assess the physical and chemical properties in foods that influence the effectiveness of UV treatment and impact inactivation kinetics. It also addresses the effects of UV processing on food quality, before considering the engineering aspects of UV light treatment, such as transport phenomena, process calculations, and continuous-flow reactor geometries. The book then describes the principles of validating UV reactors as well as the principles and applications of UV pulsed light, including microbial inactivation in water, meat, fruits, vegetables, and packaging materials. For anyone working in food research, development, and operations, this resource provides broad, accessible information on the science and applications of UV light technology. It shows how UV light irradiation can be used as a physical preservation method in food processing.

Since UV curing (light induced polymerisation of multifunctional oligomers) is a very ecoefficient and energy saving curing method, the growth rates of UV curable coatings are in the range of 10% per year. The typical UV coatings are solvent free (100% solids), thus helping the industry and the environment to reduce significantly VOC (volatile organic compounds). Recently, the automotive industry has discovered that UV cured coatings are very scratch resistant, which stimulated very extensive work into the development of UV coatings for automotive applications. Since UV curing is very universal, also other systems besides the 100% solid (typical) UV coatings are developed, like waterbased UV- , UV powder and Dual cure (UV and thermal) systems.UV Coatings contains an overview of the technology, the curing process including the equipment necessary, the raw materials (resins, diluents, photoinitiators) used, the advantages and drawbacks of this fast emerging technology, as well as proposed technical solutions to tackle the disadvantages. Structure-property relationships will be given, especially regarding the mechanical properties of coatings as well as scratch resistance, mainly dealing with automotive performance criteria. The main part of the book will deal with new developments, like water-based UV coatings, UV powder coatings and dual cure systems, cured by UV and thermal energy, which have been developed to cure the coating on three dimensional substrates in shadow areas. The main applications of UV Coatings will be described, starting with the classical ones on temperature sensitive substrates, like wood, paper and plastics, where the UV curable coatings are already well established.* Looking at UV curing as a key to scratch resistant automotive clear coats* Ecoefficiency of UV Coatings* Comprehensive overview of the technology, materials and markets

This report represents the views and expert opinions of an IARC Working Group that met in Lyon, France, 27-29 June 2005

Numerous studies report that ultraviolet (UV) radiation is harmful to living organisms and detrimental to human health. Growing concerns regarding the increased levels of UV-B radiation that reach the earth's surface have led to the development of ground- and space-based measurement programs. Further study is needed on the measurement, modeling, and effects of UV radiation. The chapters of this book describe the research conducted across the globe over the past three decades in the areas of: (1) current and predicted levels of UV radiation and its associated impact on ecosystems and human health, as well as economic and social implications; (2) new developments in UV instrumentation, advances in calibration (ground- and satellite-based), measurement methods, modeling efforts, and their applications; and (3) the effects of global climate change on UV radiation. Dr. Wei Gao is a Senior Research Scientist and the Director of the USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University. Dr. Gao is a SPIE fellow and serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Applied Remote Sensing. Dr. Daniel L. Schmoldt is the National Program Leader for instrumentation and sensors at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dr. Schmoldt served as joint Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Computers & Electronics in Agriculture, from 1997 to 2004. Dr. James R. Slusser retired in 2007 from the USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program at Colorado State University. He was active in the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society. Dr. Slusser is currently pursuing his interests in solar energy and atmospheric transmission.

Following the rapid developments in the UV-B measurement techniques and the rapidly growing research in the field in the late 80's and early 90's, we organized a large gathering of distinguished experts in a NATO Advanced Study Institute, held in Halkidiki, Greece on October, 2-11. 1995. The Institute was organized so as to include state of the art lectures on most aspects of solar ultraviolet radiation and its effects. This was achieved by extended lectures and discussions given in five sessions by 27 lecturers and a demonstration of filed measurements and calibration techniques at the end of the Institute. The ASI began with the sun and fundamentals on solar radiative emissions and their variability in time and continued with the interaction of solar Ultraviolet with the atmosphere through the complex scattering processes and photochemical reactions involved. Particular emphasis was given to changes in atmospheric composition imposed by different manifestations of the solar activity cycle. as well as on the modelling of radiative transfer through the atmosphere and the ocean under variable environmental conditions. Overviews on the ozone issue. its monitoring and variability were extensively discussed with emphasis on the observed acceleration of ozone decline in the early 90's. This acceleration had as a consequence, significant increases in UV-B radiation observed at a few world-wide distributed stations.