Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction of methylxanthines from maté tea leaves

Methylxanthines are alkaloids found in natural products such as tea, coffee and guaraná. These alkaloids are commonly used in cola drinks and pharmaceutical products due principally to their stimulant and diuretic effects on the human organism. In this work, experimental data on the supercritical CO2 extraction of caffeine, theophylline and theobromine from herbal maté tea, a beverage traditionally consumed by the gauchos of southern Brazil, the Argentine, Paraguay and Uruguay, were obtained using high pressure extraction equipment that allows adequate control of temperature and pressure. The continuous extraction/fractionation of maté tea leaves, Ilex paraguariensis in natura using carbon dioxide was carried out at 313.2 and 343.2 K and pressures of 13.8 and 25.5 MPa. Extraction/fractionation curves revealed the large influence of temperature and pressure on extraction yield. CO2 was also found to show a higher selectivity for caffeine than for theophylline and theobromine.251260Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Supercritical carbon dioxide technology: A promising technique for the non-thermal processing of freshly fruit and vegetable juices

The new global trends for consuming natural products rich in bioactive compounds and health-promoter phytochemicals have increased the modern consumer's interest in fruit and vegetable juices. But, the current technologies based on thermal treatments reduce the nutritional value and degrade sensory attributes of these products in relation to the fresh-like juices. Scope and approach: Supercritical carbon dioxide (SC–CO2) technology has emerged as a potential non-thermal technology for the inactivation of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms and endogenous enzymes responsible for the deterioration of fruit and vegetable juices. Likewise, non-thermal SC-CO2 processing can preserve the compounds associated with beneficial health effects besides maintaining sensory attributes. Thus, the effects of the SC-CO2 technology on the microbial and enzymatic inactivation, nutritional compounds, physicochemical properties, sensory attributes and shelf-life of the fruit and vegetable juices are discussed. Key findings and conclusions: SC-CO2 technology is a promising technique for the processing of fresh fruit and vegetable juices in a non-thermal way. SC-CO2 processing is able to inactivate microbial and enzymatic load of plant-based juices in the temperature range of 35–55 °C and pressure range of 10–60 MPa. SC-CO2 treated juices are sensorially similar to the fresh-like products with their nutritional value and physicochemical characteristics very close to the unprocessed juices. Under cold storage conditions, the juices stabilized by SC-CO2 treatment achieved a microbial shelf-life of at least 20 days with quality attributes of freshly juice, depending on their processing parameters and type of juice. However, additional studies are required to perform process optimization, exploring the synergism among its main variables in the same way that economic viability studies are needed97381390CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESP302423/2015–02018/14550–6Eric Keven Silva thanks FAPESP (2018/14550–6) for his postdoctoral assistantship at University of Alberta. M. Angela A. Meireles thanks CNPq (302423/2015–0) for her productivity grant. Marleny D.A. Saldaña thanks the 2017–2018 McCalla Professorship award and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC, #04371–2019) for funding her research program on emerging processing technologie

Supercritical anti-solvent process as an alternative technology for vitamin complex encapsulation using zein as wall material: Technical-economic evaluation

The objective of this study was to investigate the technical-economic feasibility of supercritical antisolvent (SAS) technique for the precipitation of a vitamin complex containing riboflavin, δ-tocopherol and β-carotenein zein microcapsules. First, the following parameters were investigated for the precipitation of pure zein: pressure (7.0–16.0 MPa), anti-solvent flow rate (20–60 g/min), solution flow ratio (0.5–1.5 mL/min) and concentration of zein in an aqueous ethanol solution (0.02–0.04 g/mL). Then, at optimized SAS condition for zein precipitation (pressure of 16 MPa, temperature of 313 K, zein concentration of 0.02 mg/mL, solution flow rate of 1 mL/min and anti-solvent flow rate of 60 g/min) was performed the co-precipitation of the vitamins with zein. The results showed that the mean particle size of the microcapsules varied from 8 to 18 μm, depending on the vitamins encapsulated, being its morphology spherical, meanwhile the precipitation yield was within the range of 41–82 g/100 gCONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESP302423/2015-0; 401109/2017-8; 150745/2017-6; 140641/2011-499,999.002445/2014-002013/18114-

Repercussion of anthropogenic landscape changes on pedodiversity and preservation of the pedological heritage

Over a period of time people have lived in and with their surrounding landscapes and for several thousand years transformed the soilscapes and the vegetation into cultural landscape types important for their economy and to meet their needs (Richter 2007, Ellis 2011, Hjelle 2012). The sustainable provision of goods and services depends critically on managing soils without damaging the natural soilscapes and the related natural resources. To support the transition towards sustainable development, science needs to understand how land-use change affects the environment and how this, in turn, feeds back into human livelihood strategies or infl uences the vulnerability of the environment (Rounsevell et al. 2012a). Interactions between decision-making, governance structures, production and consumption, technology, ecosystem services and global environmental change infl uence human activities at the local and regional scale, and are infl uenced by and feed back to the global scale, thereby shaping trajectories of human–environment interaction in land systems (Lambin and Meyfroidt 2011)