Zorionak eta Urte Berri On!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Joyeux Nöel et bonne nouvelle année 2009!

¡Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo!

Idoki's Participation in "II Ecuadorean Congress in food engineering"

From the web page of UTPL we can see the talk from Dr. Iñarra about "Use of supercritical fluid technologies in food and nutraceutical industries" (In Spanish).

We can also see interviews to Dr. Iñarra and Ms. Ximena Carrión, both from Idoki SCF Technologies.

Supercrítical Fluids in agrofood...

"II Ecuadorean Congress in food engineering" will be held Loja (Ecuador) from the 5th to 7th November.
Dr. Bruno Iñarra, from IDOKI, will talk about the use of supercritical fluids in the food industry, agrofood and nutraceutical.
At the same time and place takes place the "XI Conference of Food Science and Technology" as a meeting between university and enterprises.

See you at ECONAT2008!

Supercritical Fluid Extraction has a wide range of applications among we can find medicinal products. The extraction of actives molecules from natural matrices with supercritical fluids is a way to enhance traditional and natural medicines.

At the "International Congress on Natural medicines" ECONAT2008 our colleague Dr. Jauregi will talk about the medicinals properties of propolis (Abstract in Spanish).

The congress will be held in Madrid from 19th to 21th September.

See you there!

Lecture...

About the Supercritical fluid...

Here are an interview with the acclaimed Martyn Poliakoff (a chemistry professor at the University of Nottingham) that I've had the honour to meet at the 11th European Meeting on Supercritical Fluids

Update: Natural Supercritical Water

In a previous post Natural Supercritical Fluid? (Wednesday, February 13, 2008) I talked about a courious phenomena.
I've found a new article related "Mud volcanoes – a result of supercritical water formation at depth?".

Supercritical Fluid Course

The "Life Long Learning Intensive Course: Supercritical Fluids - Green Solvents in Chemical Engineering" will be held in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (6th – 20th July 2008).

The course comprises lessons and exercises about basics and applications of supercritical fluids (CO2, propane, water,...) for chemical engineering processes and other high pressure technologies.

You can register from the web site, but hurry up! the deadline for registration is next 15th May 2008.

11th European Meeting on Supercritical Fluids

New Perspectives in Supercritical Fluids:
Nanoscience, Materials and Processing

The 11th European Meeting on Supercritical Fluids will be held from 4th to 7th of May (Sunday to Wednesday ). The scientific program will focus on those aspects at the frontier of new progresses in the field of applications of supercritical fluids. It will focus on the following topics:

1) Self-organized Soft Materials
2) New trends in Drug Delivery
3) Challenges in Theoretical Aspects
4) Crystalline polymorphism
5) Processing

I hope to see you there!

Supercritical Fluids transition...

In my everyday patrol of the internet looking for supercritical fluid stuffs, I've found these videos of the transition from supercritical fluid to liquid-gas equilibria.

The first one shows the aparatus employed, and the substance is benzene.


The second one, also shows the experimental setup. The liquid is ethane.



This 3rd one can be CO2, but it's not said.



An a second one, same "liquid" as previous one but at zero "g"


Finally, supercritical water transition.

Food additives or Biofortified Food.

One of the uses of Supercritical Fluids is the extraction of actives compounds for the alimentary industry.
The obtaining of natural preservatives, flavours, colorants or aromas are of great interest because the low temperature used in the process avoids the destruction of thermolabile compounds.
But there is another important market in the food industry, the extraction of actives compounds such as carotenes or poly-unsaturated fatty acids. These compounds added to food increase their nutritional value.

However it's not the only way to enrich food, I've found and article about "Biofortified" food. The use genetic manipulation allows producing vegetables with high levels of vitamins or other micronutrients. The main doubt, apart from the general aversion produced by "genetically modified" words, was whether the nutrients are bioavailable.
A recent publication, report that carrots genetically engineered to accumulate twice as much calcium as control carrots are indeed a good source of this essential nutrient, resulting in a 50% increase in calcium absorption [1].

Then we are between nutrition and pharmacology and in the field of novel foods which deals with food safety and a lack of clear legislation.

[1] Morris J. & cols. PNAS 105 (2008) 1431

Green Chemistry using CO2?

This is one of the questions people use to ask when you explain Supercritical Fluid process and you argue that is a green process, or you talk about sustainable development.
Of course CO2 is regarded as one of the most important environmental problems and its relation with climate change and global warming seams well establish.
However, although most Supercritical Fluids processes employ CO2 as solvent, we don't have to forget that the process DOES NOT PRODUCE CO2 and, moreover, most of the CO2 employed is recirculated.

Related with CO2 problem, today I’ve found a new about one more possible solution.
Craig Venter at TED2008 (Technology, Entertainment and Design) talked about his latest research into "fourth-generation fuels", biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock.
The idea is to create genetically new bacterias that will produce methane form atmospheric CO2.
It seems more plausible than transforming CO2 in fuel using nuclear energy.
But, having to play with DNA, the idea will have lots of detractors, perhaps more than nuclear energy.

20 years of JSCF!

I suppose most readers of this blog may know this publication.

"The Journal of Supercritical Fluids" is like a bedside book when you are doing some research in the field.

The Journal of Supercritical Fluids is an international journal devoted to the fundamental and applied aspects of supercritical fluids and processes. Its aim is to provide a focused platform for academic and industrial researchers to report their findings and to have ready access to the advances in this rapidly growing field. Its coverage is multidisciplinary and includes both basic and applied topics.

Its publication begun in 1988 with a single issue in the whole year and six articles. Nowadays they produce twelve issues per year with fifteen articles in each.

That gives an idea of how supercritical fluids technologies are rising and the extend of its application. More over, other scientific publications are full of articles with supercritical fluids, such as "Journal of Agricultural Food and Chemistry" or "International Journal of Food Science and Technology".

It's not a coincidence that both cited publication are related with "food". It's in fact in the field of nutrition where supercritical fluid technologies are finding one market niche. Production of preservatives, food additives, aromas and other interesting products for alimentary industry by means of a "high tech process" are favored by legislation (against organic solvents) and the appeal of natural products produced with green technologies (Another publication that has to do with supercritical fluids, "Green Chemistry" wich is celebrating its ten years).

Other important applications for supercritical fluids are cosmetics and pharmaceutical products, and the list is expanding as quickly as the technology is getting affordable and better known.

About climate change.

"Earth under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World"
It's a recently published book with a novel view of a warming world.
The author, Gary Braasch, gives a photographic report that shoes how the climate is changing the landscape. Pictures are documentated and supported by weighty scientific evidences.

You can find more information here or here and if you like it it's better to buy it here!

Green Guide

Looking for new today I've found a publication of National Geographic.

It's a green guide and its philosophy is close to ours so I want to give you the link to share this curiosity.


I hope you enjoy it!



http://www.thegreenguide.com/

... forest looses, greenhouse wins.

WWF has published a summary report of the contribution to climate change due to forest loss in Sumatra.

It's not only a problem of greenhouse effect but it also drives to extinction to elephants and other animals.

I think it's a really good example of the opposite of "sustainable development".

Read the new, the summary or the full report.

just in case...

If everything goes wrong, if doomsday arrives or whatever... a frozen vault has been opened in Norway where millions of seeds will be stored to safeguard against any disasters wiping out food crops around the globe.

I hope we won't need it.

More info: Wikipedia; BBC, WashingtonPost, National Geographic, Times, The New York Times...

Green USA effect?

The USA seems ready to accept "binding international obligations" on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, officials say, if other nations do the same.
They wants to conclude talks before the G8 summit in Japan. (Source)

It may seem that it's a bit late, but I hope it won't be too late!

(I've found this explanation of the BBC about "greenhouse effect", for those who need a simple explanation).

and now... BIODIESEL jumbo!

Virgin Atlantic announced yesterday a 747 flown on a mixture of about 20 percent biofuel and the rest kerosene.
It seems that the origin of the biodiesel is from amazon nuts (source).

It's the first step for cleaners fuels, but are we going to get short of nuts, like Mexicans of corn?
Does the amazon will resist?

Car that runs on air?

This kind of vehicle could be on sale in India as soon as this year.

That's the proposal of TATA group.

However, the vehicle burns small amounts of conventional fuels at higher speeds that limits its "environmental friendly" conception.

The idea has been developed by Moteur Development International (MDI), by Mr. Guy Nègre, in cooperation with Mr. Miguel Celades, who now is in AirCar factories.

In fact there is some discussion between both (read here and here)...

The main problem of this invention, in my opinion, is the fact that we have to compress the air. That means a consumption of energy, electric energy.

So I wonder if the performance of the system enhances the results of electrical cars.

International Year of Planet Earth

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the year 2008 to be the "International Year of Planet Earth", and the inauguration took place last week.

The proclamation set up the purposes of the event, that are related with sustainable development.

I don´t know if I'm well informed or not, but is the first new I have from this program and it started in 2006!
So I wonder, were did these good proposal went?
Are we going to see any result or improvemnt of anything?

You can also read the "Status Report" of "August 2007" and "January 2008".
Don't bother too much... they are nearly identical.
Only the number of "national committees" has increase.. but, what for?

CO2 + H2O -> fuel + O2

This is the proposal of scientist of "Los Alamos National Laboratory ".

Nothing new, if an hydrocarbon plus oxygen give carbon dioxyde plus water, the inverse reaction is feasible... we only have to give some energy.

The "unique" problem is the source of energy.

Nuclear energy?

Today the principal investigator on the project, F. Jeffrey Martin, will be presenting a talk on the subject at the Alternative Energy NOW conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

I don't know if the label "green chemistry" or "sustainable development" are appropiate for this new...

More information here.

No news, good news.

Today I haven't found any interesting new or curiosity...

However, I don't want to lose the opportunity to encourage everybody to comment any article.
We are also open to news proposals related with Supercritical Fluids, Green Chemistry, Sustainable development... (themes related with our activity).

about Supercritical Fluids...

I suppose most of the readers of this blog, if there are some, should know what a Supercritical Fluid is.
Just in case...
A SCF is defined as a substance above its critical temperature (TC) and critical pressure (PC). The critical point represents the highest temperature and pressure at which the substance can exist as a vapour and liquid in equilibrium.
In the figure you can see the transition from the gas-liquid equilibrium to de Supercrítical Fluid.
You can find more information elsewhere... like here, here or here ...
or just type "Supercritical Fluids" on Google!

Pollutant ships...

Planes, car, buses and trucks...
All are pollutants means of transport that contributes to the "greenhouse effect".
However, leaked UN report says that ships pollution is three times higher than previously thought, and represent 1.12 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, while global air travel is responsible for around 650 million tonnes of CO2 each year.
That means that ships are responsible for 4% of CO2 emissions, and must be included in Kyoto targets.

More info:
- True scale of CO2 emissions from shipping revealed (The guardian)
- Ships' greenhouse emissions revealed (Nature)

Results?

Well...
the "thematic debate" of the UN took place...
the "Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2008" (DSDS) has finished...

and Valentine's day is here!

you can read here the statements of the UN debate... and more details here...
on the other hand you can read the "Proceedings DSDS 2007" that I suppose are similar to those of 2008...

In fact the same conclusion, as Boxer in "Animal farm" use to say: "I will work harder".
We have to work harder...

But doesn't matter, today is Valentine's day.

Natural Supercritical Fluid?

In my every day search about related news or curiosities on Supercritical Fluids I´ve found and "old" article from "Nature" that talks about underwater hot spots.

---

Record hotspot found underwater
Scientists working in the southern Atlantic Ocean have found a 407 °C hydrothermal vent, the hottest yet known on an ocean floor.

---

(if somebody has acces to the full text... please let me know)

Well, this is hot!
but if we go ahead, these hotspots are at 3000 meters under the sea, that means about 300 bar (4350 psi) of pressure...
So water in these condition is a Supercritical Fluid. (Critical temperature and pressure of water,374°C; 217.7 atm, 3147 psi).
So we have a source of natural Supercritical Water!

Celebrating the tenth year of the Green Chemistry journal

Green Chemistry is the utilisation of a set of principles that reduces or eliminates the use or generation of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture and application of chemical products.[1]

Since Paul Anastas and John Warner established the 12 principles of "Green chemistry"[1] lot of changes have taken place.
But this "new" is to talk about the tenth anniversary of the journal.
In fact, that was in January, but we didn't had our BLOG then.
You can download their EDITORIAL here.

Nowadays, green chemistry, sustainable development and related concepts are daily used, normally in the same sentence as greenhouse effect or global warming, and debates, summits and conferences are organised...
but, are we advancing toward the solution?

1- Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice, P. T. Anastas and J. C. Warner, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998.

Addressing Climate Change: The United Nations and the World at Work

Today will start this debate at UN Headquarters in New York.
Two discussions will take place:

- Rising to the Challenge: Parnerships on Climate Change
- Responding to a Multifaceted Challenge: The UN at Work
Tomorrow there will be a discussion open to all in which Member States will make statements.

You can find all the information here.

I wonder if this kind of meetings are useful, or its only a meeting of good intentions.

Neither liquid nor gas, odd substances find uses.

Looking for Supercritical Fluids News I've found an article from "The New York Times" published in May 19, 1987.

It's an old one, but it gives a clear an simple point of view of this "BIZARRE form of matter".

You can read the full text here.

IDOKI SCF Technologies S.L.

Whit this blog we want to let you know about our enterprise, our philosophy and to create a tool to discuss about supercritical fluids technologies and related matters.
If you want more information don't hesitate to visit our website, http://www.idoki.com/.

A través de este blog queremos dar a conocer nuestra empresa, nuestra filosofía y crear una herramienta de intercambio de impresiones y conocimientos en el mundo de la tecnología de fluidos supercríticos.
Para un primer contacto con IDOKI os invitamos a visitar nuestra página web, www.idoki.com, y a dejar aquí vuestras impresiones.

Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2008

The 2008 edition of the DSDS (Delhi Sustainable Development Summit) assumes unusual importance because it deals with the theme of ‘Sustainable Development and Climate Change’. Climate change is the result of society having pursued a path of development that is not sustainable. The impacts of this, in turn, make it difficult for societies, particularly the poorest ones, to implement measures of development, which are sustainable. DSDS 2008 will focus on promoting an understanding of this linkage among decision-makers and leaders who can mould public opinion. The summit has another significance. The 13th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was held in Bali in December 2007. So it would not bean exaggeration to state that DSDS 2008 would be a crucial step in the global process to tackle the challenge of climate change—especially since several heads of state and leaders of the corporate sector and civil society as well as distinguished academics and researchers would be present at the summit.