Functional butter for reduction of consumption risk and improvement of nutrition

Butter has become renowned among consumers because of its exceptional flavor and taste.Nevertheless,conventional butter is deemed“unhealthy”due to its high concentration of saturated fats and cholesterol,which are linked to the development of cardiovascular ailments.Improving the health benefits of butter has become an essential topic of research in the butter industry.This review focuses on researches that have made improvements to functionality of butter,including the changes in fatty acid composition,cholesterol reduction,incorporation with bioactive substances,development of new sources.The reduction of saturated fatty acids and cholesterol in butter can help reduce the risk of disease from eating butter.In addition,incorporating probiotics or natural plant extracts can achieve nutritional functions such as balancing intestinal flora,enhancing nutrient absorption,and increasing the body’s antioxidant capacity.Butter substitute products can be based on new vegetable oils,insect fats or microbial fats,which cater to the consumer demands for low-calorie butter while reducing the environmental impact that results from butter production.This review summarizes the effects and characteristics of various improvement methods and proposes some possible directions for future development of functional butter.

Visualized thermoresponsive helix-helix switch of polyphenylacetylene with a wide-range tunable transition temperature

Polymers with tunable helicity and naked-eye structural change under external stimuli are valuable for fabricating smart materials. Herein, we report a novel thermoresponsive color and fluorescent polyphenylacetylene switch with a tunable critical temperature. It relies on the temperature and solvent sensitivity of intramolecular n→π* interactions between the vicinal carbonyl groups of ester substituents located at 3,5-positions, which are indispensable for forming the cis-cisoid helical conformation of polyene backbones. In a properly chosen solvent, a compressed cis-cisoid helix is stabilized by n→π* interactions at low temperatures and yields a colorless solution. Increasing temperature causes the conformational transition toward an extended cis-transoid helix due to the disruption of n→π* interactions and produces a yellow solution. Reducing the hydrogen bond donating ability or polarity of solvents increases the switching temperature. By introducing a fluorogenic pendant, this conformational transition can also be read out by fluorescence quenching. This work may open a new window for developing intelligent materials through precisely tuning conformational transitions.

Effect of stereoregularity on excitation-dependent fluorescence and room-temperature phosphorescence of poly(2-vinylpyridine)

Preparation of non-conjugated luminescent polymers(NCLPs)with excellent cluster luminescence(CL)performance is of great significance for scientific and industrious applications,and yet improving the performance of NCLPs through proper structural design is still a huge challenge.Herein,we report a non-conjugated ionized polymeric system consisting of(−)-camphorsulfonic acid((−)-CSA)and poly(2-vinylpyridine)(P2VP).These acid-base complexes exhibit typical excitationdependent fluorescence and room-temperature phosphorescence(RTP)with a lifetime up to 364 ms.We discover that changing the stereoregularity from atactic to isotactic significantly improves the CL performance of the complex.It(1)broadens the fluorescence emission spectra to cover the entire visible region,(2)enhances the fluorescence emission intensity at long wavelength beyond 500 nm,(3)enhances the phosphorescence intensity,and(4)extends the phosphorescence lifetime.Systematical experimental characterization and molecular dynamics simulation unravel the key role of stereoregularity in determining the formation of different pyridine aggregates that strongly influence the CL performance.Moreover,the different luminescence shows great potential in excitation divided information display and time-resolved encrypted display.This work not only points to a new direction for developing NCLPs with excellent performance,but also broadens the applications of NCLPs materials.