COLD PLASMA STERILIZATION (in this picture an egg)
Animal foodstuff is often contaminated with harmful bacteria. Within a certain time frame there is only limited risk of a foodborne disease.
Reducing the amount of bacteria is a strategy often pursued by food processing to extend shelf life. Mostly sterilization of foodstuff relies on heat driven technology, next to the use of chemicals. They inhibit bacteria growth by destroying (heat sensitive) biomolecules.
Using chemicals or heat is however sometimes not applicable or practicable as for example in egg sterilization.
DNA VARIATION:
The state of the foodstuff package can be switched from lIQUID/GAS to FIELD using a plasma technology to replace heat or chemicals.
Cold plasma can be used to sterilize foodstuff. It does not rely on heat but rather on a combination of UV radiation of the plasma beam and charged particles which adhere to the biomolecules. UV destroys photo-sensitive biomolecules while charged particles adhere to the cell membrane and thereby rupture it.
Photochemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the chemical effects of light. Generally, this term is used to describe a chemical reaction caused by absorption of ultraviolet (wavelength from 100 to 400 nm), visible light (400 – 750 nm) or infrared radiation (750 – 2500 nm).[1]
In nature, photochemistry is of immense importance as it is the basis of photosynthesis, vision, and the formation of vitamin D with sunlight.[2]Photochemical reactions proceed differently than thermal reactions. Photochemical paths access high energy intermediates that cannot be generated thermally, thereby overcoming large activation barriers in a short period of time, and allowing reactions otherwise inaccessible by thermal processes. Photochemistry is also destructive, as illustrated by the photodegradation of plastics.
http://www.path.org/news/press-room/422/
http://sites.path.org/drugdevelopment/2014/08/a-decade-of-teamwork-and-collaboration/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photochemistry#Examples_of_photochemical_reactions
To build upon the SMB idea, you can start with a need in pharma: to separate expensive & complex compounds, thus SMB is invented. Natural compounds are also often complex and difficult to separate, so SMB was used for that separation, for instance mixture of sugars (saccharide, scientifically speaking). SMB was scaled-up from pharma scale (few tons) to sugar industry scale (thousand tons). Then some smart guys said: in the bioethanol industry, we also need to separate (and purify) lots of sugars from cellulose hydrolysates.
You see the path: 1) invented in pharma, 2) made cost-effective and large scale in food, 3) ready to take over in other industry
You may even sketch an S-curve… J
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_moving_bed