The paper reports on experimental data on the extraction of caffeine, coffee oil and chlorogenic acids from green coffee beans using pure supercritical CO2 and supercritical CO2 modified with ethanol (5% w/w) and isopropyl alcohol (5% w/w) at 50 and 60ºC and 15.2 24.8 e 35.2 MPa. In this study extraction kinetics were obtained for all assays i.e. samples were collected at several time intervals for each solvent and mixed solvent. When pure CO2 and CO2-ethanol mixed solvent were used, an increase in pressure resulted in an increase in the amount of oil extracted. When CO2 was modified with isopropyl alcohol, the amount of coffee oil extracted also increased with pressure. Caffeine extraction initially increased and subsequently decreased with pressure. Chlorogenic acids were only extracted when isopropyl alcohol was used as a co-solvent. An increase in extraction temperature resulted in a decrease of caffeine and oil extraction (retrograde condensation) when only CO2 was used as solvent. With the use of co-solvent this retrograde behavior was no longer observed and the increase in temperature resulted in the increase in the extracted amounts of caffeine, coffee oil and chlorogenic acids.

The possibility of reusing excess sludge treated by hydrothermal reaction for the purpose of improving the efficiency of the enhanced biological phosphate removal (EBPR) process was investigated. Excess sludge from a fish-processing industry located in Japan was treated in high-temperature and high-pressure water, at a reaction temperature ranging from 200 to 400ºC, a pressure of 1.8 to 30MPa and a constant reaction time of 7 min. For the conditions tested, the results showed that when the reaction temperature was increased the content of readily biodegradable substrate in the total COD Cr increased. In addition, the amount of some volatile fatty acids (VFAs) produced by the hydrothermal reaction increased as reaction temperature increased. From the phosphate release tests under anaerobic conditions, it was possible to demonstrate that not only the VFAs, but also the readily and slowly biodegradable substrates are used as potential carbon source by the phosphate-accumulating organisms (PAOs).

The UNIQUAC model for the excess Gibbs energy is modified using chemical theory to account for chain-like association occurring in self-associating compounds such as alcohols. The equation considers the alcohol to be a mixture of clusters in chemical equilibrium. The UNIQUAC equation is used to model the behavior of the mixture of clusters, with size and surface parameters related to the number of alcohol molecules involved in their formation. The values of association enthalpy and entropy were obtained through fitting vapor pressure data. The model is used to correlate phase behavior of alcohol-hydrocarbon mixtures at low pressures, presenting excellent results in bubble point calculations. A further extension was made to allow for cross-association, the formation of a hydrogen bond between the molecules of an alcohol and an active solute. This extension was used to model alcohol-aromatic mixtures with equally good results.

Mixtures containing compounds that undergo hydrogen bonding show large deviations from ideal behavior. These deviations can be accounted for through chemical theory, according to which the formation of a hydrogen bond can be treated as a chemical reaction. This chemical equilibrium needs to be taken into account when applying stability criteria and carrying out phase equilibrium calculations. In this work, we illustrate the application of the stability criteria to establish the conditions under which a liquid-phase split may occur and the subsequent calculation of liquid-liquid equilibrium using a chemical-theory-modified Flory-Huggins equation to describe the non ideality of aqueous two-phase systems composed of poly(ethylene glycol) and dextran. The model was found to be able to correlate ternary liquid-liquid diagrams reasonably well by simple adjustment of the polymer-polymer binary interaction parameter.