Faculdade

Eventos

Alexandre Paiva | 8th LAQV-UCIBIO Conference Cycle

Qua, 23 maio 2018, 12:00 - 13:00
Tipo de evento: 
Seminário
Localização específica: 
Room 217D - Edifício Departamental

Alexandre Paiva

LAQV, FCT NOVA

A story of a canned sardine that wanted to be green: The supercritical CO2, subcritical water, and deep eutectic solvents chronicles
Chaired by Susana Barreiros

 

Abstract

It is estimated that in EU-28, 88 million tons of food are wasted per year, representing 20% of all food produced, with 143 billion euros associated costs. Among all wasted food, fish is the main source of surpluses when processed for human consumption, generating residues equivalent to 20 to 75% (w/w) of starting raw materials. In particular, the canning process is the second biggest source of fish-processing residues, generating more than 1.5 million tonnes per year of waste in the EU alone.

In the last years, several studies pointed marine by-products and waste streams as a remarkable source of important bioactive molecules, which hold a much higher market value than the starting materials. In particular, marine ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω-3 PUFA) which hold therapeutic effects against different diseases such as cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, cancer (being even able to improve efficacy and tolerability of chemotherapy), and bioactive proteins and peptides (BPP) for their potential to act as opiate-like, antihypertensives, mineral-binding, antioxidants, antimicrobials and immune/cytomodulators.

Following the biorefinery concept using several green solvents, such as sub-, supercritical fluids and deep eutectic solvents (DES), different added-value products can be obtained, exploiting to the maximum the potential of otherwise low (or no) value waste streams.

 

Short Bio

Alexandre Paiva was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1978. He graduated in Chemical Engineering from Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FCT-UNL) in 2001 and completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering − Thermodynamics and Biocatalysis from the Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg in Germany, 2008.

In 2008 he returned to FCT-UNL as a Postdoc researcher at REQUIMTE within the project “Biodiesel production from green sources using supercritical technology”. Since 2016 he is an auxiliary researcher at LAQV@REQUIMTE. Alexandre Paiva has 45 papers in international scientific peer-reviewed journals. His main areas of expertise are sub-,supercritical fluids, biocatalysis, deep eutectic solvents and the application of these solvents in the valorization of agro-industrial by-products. He is/was involved in 1 Marie Curie project, 4 scientific projects financed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, being the principal investigator in 2 of those projects. He is/was also involved in 5 projects in collaboration with Portuguese and international companies. He is the main supervisor of 4 PhDs. and the co-supervisor of 4 more. He is/was the supervisor of more than 25 Master degree thesis.

From 2010 to 2012 he was an invited professor at the Instituto Piaget and since 2008 he is also an assistant lecturer at FCT-UNL.