Food Science Projects
2025 Projects
21. Biomaterials from Food By-products through Precision Fermentation
Over 350 metric tons of plastic waste are generated annually, among which 50% end up in landfills and less than 9% are properly recycled. Plastic waste, especially microplastic debris, has caused severe environmental pollution and adverse impact on public health, therefore raised global awareness and actions to find alternative solutions. Polyhydroxyalkanoates, also known as PHA, is a naturally occurring aliphatic polyester that’s stored in cell cytoplasm as energy reserves. It has superior thermoplastic properties, non-toxicity and biodegradability, making it the most promising sustainable substitute for petroleum-based plastics. PHA is the second mostly produced biodegradable plastics following poly-lactic acid, and its market accounts for over 13% of global bioplastic market. The current bottleneck is the high production cost, which can be 3-4 times higher than conventional plastics. Therefore, there are many research efforts on using waste feedstock and developing low-cost fermentation process.
Extreme halophiles such as H. mediterranei have gained spotlight to synthesize PHA from underutilized bioresources with potential to achieve high scalability. The intrinsic saline environment facilitates a less energy intensive fermentation strategy with no need for pasteurization. The osmotic-shock-induced extraction approach also enhances the cost-effectiveness of downstream processes. The PHA produced constitutes superior material attributes including high 3-hydroxyvalerate (3-HV)% and ultra-high molecular weights (UHMw) that facilitate better thermomechanical properties than commercially available PHAs.
This project aims to develop cell cultivation processes to produce PHA from food processing residues. The feedstocks will be side streams from food processing facilities, such as whey and fruit pomace. The summer scholar will firstly evaluate different pretreatment methods on one or multiple feedstocks, which may include enzymatic hydrolysis, thermal pasteurization and membrane filtration. Then the pretreated feedstock will be used as substrate to cultivate halophilic microbes for PHA biosynthesis. The fermentation conditions such as pH, temperature, substrate loading, agitation, and aeration will be explored, and the biomass and PHA yield will be analyzed. The student will gain hands-on experience in precision fermentation and biotechnological development, and will have access to the fermentation labs and facilities at Cornell AgriTech.
Laboratory: 100%
Mentors: Ke Wang, Bruno Xavier
22. Online Recipes? A food safety dive into seamoss product preparation
Food safety implications of online recipes for preparing seamoss gels and similar products
Seamoss and seamoss products have gained popularity due to health claims like boosting the immune system and aiding in weight loss. A simple of internet search results into hundreds of website bragging about benefits of this ingredient. While these benefits remained to be proven, seamoss product represents a food safety concern. The summer scholar will conduct a content analysis of consumer-shared recipes to evaluate the foods safety information available online. They will perform a keyword search on YouTube and Google for videos and blogs looking for general characteristics, handling practices and food safety messages. The information will help with educational materials for consumers and content creator for safe preparation of seamoss.
Computer: 100%
Mentor: Ann Charles Vegdahl
23. Pulsed vacuum infrared drying: a novel processing solution for superfood powders
Low moisture food powders are gaining increased interest and market growth due to their shelf stability and versatility to be consumed directly or as an ingredient. Dried and ground up versions of whole fruits and vegetables and associated byproducts from processing are sometimes known as superfood powders, which have demonstrated health benefits and align well with the modern diet trends. Conventionally, food powders are prepared using spray drying from concentrated liquids, or dried with hot air then ground. However, there are known limitations of these existing technologies. Spray drying at high temperatures usually results in sticky and caked products due to high sugar content; hot air-drying leads to quality deterioration and hard shrank particles with poor dissolving capacity.
Addressing this issue and developing food powders with superior quality requires innovative processing technologies. One potential solution is through advanced drying technologies, such as pulsed vacuum infrared drying (PVID). This technology takes advantage of enhanced heat and mass transfer, and operates under relatively low temperature and oxygen exposure thanks to the vacuum, better preserving the nutrients and preventing non desirable changes to food properties. Such process and products need further study to be available to manufacturers and consumers.
This project aims to develop new drying processes and fruit and vegetable powders through targeted research. The summer scholar will make powders from different fruits and vegetables that are locally important, such as grapes, blueberries, table broccoli, and carrots. They will apply different pretreatment methods to the raw crops, which may include steam blanching, partial water removal and freezing. Then they will investigate the conditions to produce dried fruits and vegetables using PVID, and measure the moisture content, water activity, texture properties, and nutritional contents. Lastly, they will pulverize the powders using different grinding methods. The students will learn basic food processing and analytical skills and have access to other drying and food processing technologies in the Seneca Foods Foundation Pilot Plant, the Cornell Food Venture Center and the food processing labs.
Lab: 100%
Mentors: Chang Chen, Olga Padilla-Zakour, Viral Shukla
24. Maximizing Freshness: Combining Hexanal + HPP for shelf life extension of fresh cut brassica (broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts)
The demand for minimally processed fruit and vegetable has increased. In addition, there has been more pressure by consumers to reduce, and eliminate the use of preservatives. Several natural compounds such as phenol, aldehydes, organic acids increased the shelf-life. Of interest is hexanal which is a volatile compound, that increases fruit retentions, delays ripening, extends shelf life, and maintains quality parameters. High Pressure Processing (HPP) is a non-thermal technology and has recently gained popularity in the food industry. It increases shelf-life while preserving nutritional and sensory attributes of the food without compromising safety in RTE. The combined effect of HPP and the use of hexanal has never been studied. Therefore, the summer scholar will study the application of hexanal and HPP to extend the shelf-life of fresh cut brassica varieties. They will learn basic microbiology skills, how to conduct a microbial shelf-life study, texture and color analysis and more.
Lab: 100%
Mentors: Gerard Humiston, Mario Cobo, Ann Charles Vegdahl
25. Cell-cultured Mycelia Foods from Underutilized Bioresources
Humanity is facing grand societal and environmental challenges in the context of growing population and climate change in the 21st century. While the demand for food will double, food loss and waste still exist in each production stage, which call for strategic solutions to improve bioresource utilization. New York state has the top national ranking in producing many food and beverage commodities; these businesses generate a variety of processing residues, e.g. dairy permeate and fruit pomace, with minimum profit margin. There is a clear need to develop innovative and economically viable solutions that will enhance bioresource utilization and promote circular economy in the food industry.
Microbial fermentation is a powerful approach to upcycle underutilized bioresources into value-added products. The evolutionary transformation from conventional to cellular production system will significantly reduce land occupancy, water usage, energy consumption and result in less carbon footprint, therefore providing tangible solutions to achieve carbon-neutrality and sustainable goals. Cell-cultured foods such as edible fungi have the promise in producing sustainable protein in replacement of animal-sourced protein, and bioactive compounds with nutraceutical benefits. Optimizing fermentation conditions can precisely control the cell machinery to deliver products with desirable quality attributes.
This project aims to develop novel processes to cultivate mycelia foods and potentially bioactive ingredients through experiments. The summer scholar will firstly evaluate different pretreatment methods which may include enzymatic hydrolysis, thermal pasteurization and membrane filtration. Then the pretreated feedstock will be used as substrate for fungal mycelium cultivation through fermentation. The fermentation conditions such as pH, temperature, substrate loading, agitation, and aeration will be explored, and the biomass yield and product quality will be analyzed, including moisture content, nutritional composition, and texture properties. The student will gain hands-on experience in precision fermentation and bioprocess development and will have access to the fermentation labs and facilities at Cornell AgriTech.
Lab: 100%
Faculty: Dr. Bruno Xavier, Ke Wang