Puspita Nurlilasari
Universitas Padjadajaran
Indonesia
Abstract Title:
Extending the Viability of Palm Sap for Herbal Therapies through Thermal Inactivation and Kinetic Modeling
Biography:
Puspita completed his PhD at age 25 from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia.
Research Interests:
Palm sap is a promising raw material for nutraceuticals and standardized herbal preparations, but its short shelf life due to spontaneous fermentation (pH drop, alcohol formation, color change) limits its practical use. To address these limitations, this research presents an integrated analytical and stability study that evaluates palm sap both as a functional food precursor and as a candidate herbal. Specially, we combined LC–MS/MS and HPLC–UV quantification of signature low molecular weight bioactives with Accelerated Shelf-Life Testing (ASLT) using an Arrhenius model to (i) characterize quality degradation and (ii) predict shelf life under typical storage conditions. The experimental treatments design contrasted initial thermal inactivation (70°C, 30 min) versus untreated control, followed by storage at 4°C, ~20°C, and 45°C for 4 days. Key parameters such as pH, alcohol content, and CIELAB b* were monitored to track fermentative changes and degradation kinetics. Results demonstrated that thermal pretreatment significantly suppressed fermentative changes, reflected by higher activation energy (Ea) values than untreated samples, indicating slowed degradation kinetics. Using Arrhenius modelling, pH emerged as the rimary factor influencing shelf-life predictions, highlighting its critical role in stability assessment. At 20°C, untreated nira exhibited an estimated shelf life of 3 days, whereas thermally treated nira extended shelf life to 8–10 days, which surprisingly an approximate threefold improvement. These results demonstrate that simple thermal stabilization can convert palm sap from a labile raw material into a viable, supporting clinical studies of nira based herbal therapies as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties may reduce oxidative stress linked to diabetes.
