Experimental Kinetic Evaluation of Carbon Dioxide Hydrate-Based Concentration for Grape, Pineapple, and Bitter Melon Juices.

Hydrate-based technology has emerged as a promising approach to address the industry's energy demands and product quality challenges in the food industry. Despite reported successes in the literature where higher dehydration ratios were achieved, technological problems like slow formation rates and poor process scale-up economics need to be addressed. Moreover, with little hydrate formation data available, the major focus is on the technology's ability to remove water content, but studies on the kinetics of hydrate formation are scarce. In the present work, the effects of varying grape/pineapple/bitter melon juice water cuts (88.5 to 97.4 ± 2.53 wt %) on the formation kinetics of carbon dioxide (CO2) hydrates were investigated. Such information can provide insight into the possibile commercialization of the hydrate-based technology. The reported experimental data were determined using the isochoric pressure-search method in a high-pressure reactor at a target initial temperature from 274.15 to 276.15 K and varying initial pressures. Kinetic parameters were calculated using the relative kinetic models proposed in the literature. Lower relative values of investigated kinetic parameters and longer induction times were obtained at lower juice water cuts and lower degrees of subcooling. Despite observed inhibition effects, the study provides useful experimental and modeled kinetic data for filling the knowledge gap in understanding the controlling mechanism of CO2 hydrate formation. Therefore, it is believed that the reported findings may highlight some important practical aspects related to CO2 hydrate technology as an alternative juice concentration process.

Experimental Hydrate Phase Equilibrium Data Relevant to Bitter Melon, Pineapple, and Grape Juice Concentration.

One of the major challenges experienced by the fruit juice industry is the steady rise in energy costs. Hence, it is of industrial interest to find possible environmentally friendly measures that reduce energy consumption while cost-effectively maintaining the quality of manufactured products. Hydrate-based juice concentration technology can be used to overcome this challenge. In the present work, experimental hydrate phase equilibrium conditions of three systems involving juices (system 1, CO2 + grape juice; system 2, CO2 + pineapple juice; system 3, CO2 + bitter melon juice) were measured using an isochoric pressure search method. The temperature and pressure ranges for reported experimental data were 272.6-282.3 K and 1.17-3.85 MPa, respectively. Results have shown that a decrease in water cut from 98.3 to 88.5 ± 2.53 wt % could shift the hydrate phase equilibrium conditions toward higher pressures and lower temperatures. This proved that all investigated juices exhibited inhibitory effects on gas hydrate formation. To properly assess the energy requirements for this novel technology, molar hydrate dissociation enthalpies were estimated using the Clausius-Clapeyron relations under different measurement conditions. Finally, it was established that a hydrate-based fruit juice concentration technology would be a credible alternative to existing commercial technologies, on the basis of the dehydration ratio of 57% obtained in the present study.

Response of salinity gradient power generation to inflow mode and temperature difference by reverse electrodialysis.

Sustainable utilization has been becoming the core idea of concentrated seawater disposal, which makes the harvest of salinity gradient power based on reverse electrodialysis (RED) become one of the important ways. As the important factors affecting RED performance, different flow orientations along the membrane and solution temperature have been studied in the previous researches. However, there are still some details that need to be clarified. In this study, the inflow mode was further detailed investigated. The results showed that after eliminating the interference of bubbles in the counter-current, the co-current was still better than the counter-current; when the solution of HCC (high concentration compartment) and LCC (low concentration compartment) was circulated for 3 h, the concentration of concentrated seawater discharge liquid was reduced by 6.93%, which was conducive to reducing the negative impact on the marine ecological environment. Meanwhile, the response of salinity gradient power generation to temperature difference was that high temperature had a positive effect on power density, and the order was both the HCC and LCC (0.44 W m-2) > LCC (0.42 W m-2) > HCC (0.39 W m-2). Although the RED performance was more sensitive to the temperature rise of LCC, the positive temperature difference between HCC and LCC is a more practical advantage because the temperature of concentrated seawater in HCC is usually high. These new observations could provide supports for the industrial development of RED in generating electricity economically and reducing the negative environmental impact of concentrated seawater.

Optimisation of Croton gratissimus Oil Extraction by n-Hexane and Ethyl Acetate Using Response Surface Methodology.

The extraction of oil from Croton gratissimus seeds was studied using the three-factor five-level full-factorial central composite rotatable design (CCRD) of the response surface methodology (RSM). The effect of the three factors selected, viz., extraction time, extraction temperature and solvent-to-feed ratio on the extraction oil yield was investigated when n-hexane and ethyl acetate were used as extraction solvents. The coefficients of determination (R2) of the models developed were 0.98 for n-hexane extraction and 0.97 for ethyl acetate extraction. These results demonstrated that the models developed adequately represented the processes they described. From the optimized model, maximum extraction yield obtained from n-hexane and ethyl acetate extraction were 23.88% and 23.25%, respectively. In both cases the extraction temperature and solvent-to-feed ratio were 35°C and 5 mL/g, respectively. In n-hexane extraction the maximum conditions were reached only after 6 min whereas in ethyl acetate extraction it took 20 min to get the maximum extraction oil yield. Oil extraction of Croton gratissimus seeds, in this work, favoured the use of n-hexane as an extraction solvent as it offered higher oil yields at low temperatures and reduced residence times.

Phase equilibria and modeling of pyridinium-based ionic liquid solutions.

The phase diagrams of the ionic liquid (IL) N-butyl-4-methylpyridinium bis{(trifluoromethyl)sulfonyl}imide ([BM(4)Py][NTf(2)]) with water, an alcohol (1-butanol, 1-hexanol, 1-octanol, 1-decanol), an aromatic hydrocarbon (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, n-propylbenzene), an alkane (n-hexane, n-heptane, n-octane), or cyclohexane have been measured at atmospheric pressure using a dynamic method. This work includes the characterization of the synthesized compound by water content and also by differential scanning calorimetry. Phase diagrams for the binary systems of [BM(4)Py][NTf(2)] with all solvents reveal eutectic systems with regards to (solid-liquid) phase equilibria and show immiscibility in the liquid phase region with an upper critical solution temperature (UCST) in most of the mixtures. The phase equilibria (solid, or liquid-liquid) for the binary systems containing aliphatic hydrocarbons reported here exhibit the lowest solubility and the highest immiscibility gap, a trend which has been observed for all ILs. The reduction of experimental data has been carried out using the nonrandom two-liquid (NRTL) correlation equation. The phase diagrams reported here have been compared with analogous phase diagrams reported previously for systems containing the IL N-butyl-4-methylpyridinium tosylate and other pyridinium-based ILs. The influence of the anion of the IL on the phase behavior has been discussed.