Maria Angela de Almeida Meireles

Physicochemical properties, modifications and applications of starches from different botanical sources

Present trends towards technologies and processes that increase the use of residues make starchy vegetal biomass an important alternative material in various applications due to starch’s versatility, low cost and ease of use when its physicochemical properties are altered. Starch is increasingly used in many industrial applications and as a renewable energy resource. Starch can be modified to enhance its positive attributes and eliminate deficiencies in its native characteristics. In this article, the state of knowledge on conventional and unconventional starches and their properties, characteristics, modifications and applications are reviewed.

Extraction of stevia glycosides with CO2 + water, CO2 + ethanol, and CO2 + water + ethanol

Stevia leaves are an important source of natural sugar substitute. There are some restrictions on the use of stevia extract because of its distinctive aftertaste. Some authors attribute this to soluble material other than the stevia glycosides, even though it is well known that stevia glycosides have to some extent a bitter taste. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to develop a process to obtain stevia extract of a better quality. The proposed process includes two steps: i) Pretreatment of the leaves by SCFE; ii) Extraction of the stevia glycosides by SCFE using CO2 as solvent and water and/or ethanol as cosolvent. The mean total yield for SCFE pretreatment was 3.0%. The yields for SCFE with cosolvent of stevia glycosides were below 0.50%, except at 120 bar, 16°C, and 9.5% (molar) of water. Under this condition, total yield was 3.4%. The quality of the glycosidic fraction with respect to its capacity as sweetener was better for the SCFE extract as compared to extract obtained by the conventional process. The overall extraction curves were well described by the Lack extended model.

Experimental results for the extraction of essential oil from Lippia sidoides cham. using pressurized carbon dioxide

The odoriferous species Lippia sidoides Cham. is abundant in the Brazilian Northeast. Its essential oil possesses antiseptic activity due to the presence of thymol. In this work, thermodynamic and kinetic data were experimentally determined for the CO2 + L. sidoides system. Solubility was determined using the dynamic method at pressures of 66.7 and 78.5 bar and temperatures of 283.15, 288.15, 293.15, 295.15, and 298.15 K. SFE kinetic data were obtained at 288.15 K and 66.7 bar. The composition of the multicomponent solute mixture was determined by GC-MS and compared to the composition of both the volatile oil obtained by steam distillation and the oleoresin obtained using ethanol. The SFE process yield was higher than the yield of either the steam distillation or the ethanol extraction. The solubilities were correlated using the Peng- Robinson equation of state with one binary interaction parameter for the attractive term, considering the essential oil as a pseudo-component. Sovovas model quantitatively described the overall extraction curve.

Recovery of aroma compounds from orange essential oil

The objective of this work was to study the recovery of aroma compounds present in the orange essential oil using experimental data from CUTRALE (a Brazilian Industry of Concentrated Orange Juice). The intention was to reproduce the industrial unit and afterwards to optimize the recovery of aroma compounds from orange essential oil by liquid-liquid extraction. The orange oil deterpenation was simulated using the commercial software PRO/II 4.0 version 1.0. The UNIFAC model was chosen for the calculation of the activity coefficients.

Supercritical extraction of pupunha (Guilielma speciosa) oil in a fixed bed using carbon dioxide

The pupunha (Guilielma speciosa) is the fruit of a palm tree typical of the Brazilian Northern region, whose stem is used as a source of heart of palm. The fruit, which is about 65% pulp, is a source of oil and carotenes. In the present work, an analysis of the kinetics of supercritical extraction of oil from the pupunha pulp is presented. Carbon dioxide was used as solvent. The extractions were carried out at 25 MPa and 323 K and 30 MPa and 318 K. The chemical composition of the extracts in terms of fatty acids was determined by gas chromatography. The amount of oleic acid, a saturated fatty acid, in the CO2 extracts was larger than that in the extract obtained with hexane. The overall extraction curves were modeled using the single-parameter model proposed in the literature to describe the desorption of toluene from activated coal.

Ginger and turmeric starches hydrolysis using subcritical water + CO2: the effect of the SFE pre-treatment

In this work, the hydrolysis of fresh and dried turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) and ginger (Zingiber officinale R.) in the presence of subcritical water + CO2 was studied. The hydrolysis of ginger and turmeric bagasses from supercritical fluid extraction was also studied. The reactions were done using subcritical water and CO2 at 150 bar, 200 °C and reaction time of 11 minutes; the degree of reaction was monitored through the amount of starch hydrolyzed. Process yields were calculated using the amount of reducing and total sugars formed. The effects of supercritical fluid extraction in the starchy structures were observed by scanning electron microscopy. Higher degree of hydrolysis (97- 98 %) were obtained for fresh materials and the highest total sugar yield (74%) was established for ginger bagasse. The supercritical fluid extraction did not significantly modify the degree of hydrolysis in the tested conditions.

Fast analysis of curcuminoids from turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) by high-performance liquid chromatography using a fused-core column.

The recent development of fused-core technology in HPLC columns is enabling faster and highly efficient separations. This technology was evaluated for the development of a fast method for the analysis of main curcuminoids (curcumin, demethoxycurcumin and bisdemethoxycurcumin) present in extracts of turmeric (Curcuma longa L.). A step-by-step strategy was used to optimize temperature (40-55 °C), flow rate (1.0-2.5 mL min(-1)), mobile phase composition and equilibration time (1-5 min). A gradient method was developed using acidified water and acetonitrile combined with high column temperature (55 °C) and flow rate (2.5 mL min(-1)). Optimized conditions provided a method for the separation of these three curcuminoids in approximately 1.3 min with a total analysis time (sample-to-sample) of 7 min, including the clean-up and the re-equilibration of the column. Evaluation of chromatographic performance revealed excellent intraday and interday reproducibility (>99%), resolution (>2.23), selectivity (>1.12), peak symmetry (1.24-1.42) while presenting low limits of detection (<0.40 mg L(-1)) and quantification (<1.34 mg L(-1)). The robustness of the method was calculated according to the concentration/dilution of the sample and the injection volume. Several combinations of methanol and ethanol with water as sample solvents were evaluated and the best chromatographic results and extraction rate were obtained using 100% methanol. Finally, the developed method was validated with different extracts of turmeric rhizome and products that use turmeric in their formulation.

Subcritical and supercritical technology for the production of second generation bioethanol

Abstract There is increased interest in reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and increasing the share of renewable raw materials in our energy supply chain due to environmental and economic concerns. Ethanol is emerging as a potential alternative to liquid fuels due to its eco-friendly characteristics and relatively low production costs. As ethanol is currently produced from commodities also used for human and animal consumption, there is an urgent need of identifying renewable raw materials that do not pose a competitive problem. Lignocellulosic agricultural residues are an ideal choice since they can be effectively hydrolyzed to fermentable sugars and integrated in the context of a biorefinery without competing with the food supply chain. However, the conventional hydrolysis methods still have major issues that need to be addressed. These issues are related to the processing rate and generation of fermentation inhibitors, which can compromise the quality of the product and the cost of the process. As the knowledge of the processes taking place during hydrolysis of agricultural residues is increasing, new techniques are being exploited to overcome these drawbacks. This review gives an overview of the state-of-the-art of hydrolysis with subcritical and supercritical water in the context of reusing agricultural residues for the production of suitable substrates to be processed during the fermentative production of bioethanol. Presently, subcritical and/or supercritical water hydrolysis has been found to yield low sugar contents mainly due to concurrent competing degradation of sugars during the hydrothermal processes. In this line of thinking, the present review also revisits the recent applications and advances to provide an insight of future research trends to optimize on the subcritical and supercritical process kinetics.

Economic Analysis of an Integrated Annatto Seeds-Sugarcane Biorefinery Using Supercritical CO2 Extraction as a First Step

Recently, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) has been indicated to be utilized as part of a biorefinery, rather than as a stand-alone technology, since besides extracting added value compounds selectively it has been shown to have a positive effect on the downstream processing of biomass. To this extent, this work evaluates economically the encouraging experimental results regarding the use of SFE during annatto seeds valorization. Additionally, other features were discussed such as the benefits of enhancing the bioactive compounds concentration through physical processes and of integrating the proposed annatto seeds biorefinery to a hypothetical sugarcane biorefinery, which produces its essential inputs, e.g., CO2, ethanol, heat and electricity. For this, first, different configurations were modeled and simulated using the commercial simulator Aspen Plus® to determine the mass and energy balances. Next, each configuration was economically assessed using MATLAB. SFE proved to be decisive to the economic feasibility of the proposed annatto seeds-sugarcane biorefinery concept. SFE pretreatment associated with sequential fine particles separation process enabled higher bixin-rich extract production using low-pressure solvent extraction method employing ethanol, meanwhile tocotrienols-rich extract is obtained as a first product. Nevertheless, the economic evaluation showed that increasing tocotrienols-rich extract production has a more pronounced positive impact on the economic viability of the concept.

CHAPTER 1:Uses and Applications of Extracts from Natural Sources

Scientific knowledge about the use of natural products with functional properties, consumer demand for high‐quality products, as well as legislative actions to reduce the use of synthetic food additives have led to an increase in the use of products from natural sources. This chapter aims to provide context information about the potential commercial uses of extracts from natural sources obtained by various extraction techniques, illustrating their importance in industry and identifying the scope of the techniques and aspects discussed in the following chapters. The main commercial applications of extracts from natural sources discussed here comprise their use as colorants, functional food, nutraceuticals, flavors and fragrances, preserving agents, and edible/non‐edible oils and fats applied to cosmetic, pharmaceutical and food industries. However, due to their nature, natural products are complex and therefore several aspects must be considered for each application, including importance, chemical characteristics of main compounds present and possible mechanisms of action.