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The objectives of this work were: to evaluate the physico-chemical properties in the composting process of the organic residues, filter cake and sugarcane bagasse, as well as to evaluate the time necessary for the organic compound to reach maturity, and to evaluate the performance of the different substrates in the germination of lettuce seeds. The temperature inside the pile, electrical conductivity (EC) and pH were evaluated in composting process. To evaluate the maturation of the compounds the stabilization of the temperature and EC values and the C / N ratio at the end of the process were analyzed. The data were analyzed in DIC (4x3). The treatments were: T0 - 100% FC (filter cake); T1 -100% sugarcane bagasse (SB); T2 - 50% FC and 50% SB; and T3 - 70% FC and 30% SB. For the production of the substrates from the organic compounds, the treatments were: S1 = 100% of the compound T0, S2 = 50% of T0 and 50% of the ashes of the boiler, S3 = 100% of T1, S4 = 50% of T1 and 50% of boiler ash, S5 = 100% of T2, S6 = 50% of T2 and 50% of boiler ash, S7 = 100% of T3, S8 = 50% of T3 and 50% of boiler ash, S9 = Commercial Substrate (Lupa®). The design was DIC (9x30). The percentage of germination of lettuce seeds in each of the substrates was evaluated weekly, until 30 days after sowing. At the end of each stage the data were submitted to analysis of variance and the means were compared by the Scott-Knott test, at the 5% level of significance. It was concluded that the compounds reached maturity at 90 days for treatments T0, T2, T3 and T4 and it is possible to formulate substrates for the making of lettuce seedlings from the residues of the sucroenergy sector evaluated.

This paper shows the use of a new system (hardware, firmware and software) to assess the negative impact of transportation on postharvest fruit quality. Fruit and vegetable postharvest losses are very high, using this system it is possible to diagnose and implement improvements in transport, thus decreasing mechanical impact. The system has a hardware endowed with a tri-axial accelerometer and a global positioning system (GPS). The firmware of the system is composed of a threshold based detection algorithm that measures acceleration peaks during transport. The system software allows reporting impact magnitude, geographic location and time of the event on a map using a virtual instrument developed in LabVIEW ™ platform. The main goal of this research was to test this equipment in the transportation of oranges and analyze the number of occurrences when exceeding a determined acceleration threshold. Orange boxes of about 23 kg each were set on a small truck, filling the body and the equipment was positioned evenly in the back and middle. The test was done through repetition and comparison of data taking into account the position of the equipment in the truck body (back and middle) and different types of pavements on a chosen path of 20.5 km divided among unpaved, asphalt and urban avenues – with and without speed bumps and roundabouts. The chi-square test at 5 % was used for the quantitative data analysis. The results show the frequency of repetition of acceleration peaks according to their orientation (X, Y, Z axes and their combinations). For the total route, a difference was observed between the frequencies of threshold violations depending on the location of the boxes. For the chosen route, the unpaved road and urban avenues showed the highest threshold violation for vertical position- axis Z. Box position in the truck and variations in pavement causes a distinctive impact magnitude. The map showing all impact data showed to be an important tool to give support to food traceability, recording critical points and situations that can be changed.

Physical damage can be considered one of the main causes of postharvest losses for fruits and vegetables. One of the challenges is to measure the impact magnitude on packing lines. There is a number of equipment that can be applied, and the most common are instrumented spheres. A Wireless Instrumented Sphere (WIS) was developed being a low cost alternative that acquires and transmits, in real time, three axis acceleration measurements from a packing line. The WIS was tested on three apple commercial packinghouses located in the south of Brazil, and in an commercial orange packinghouse, located in interior of São Paulo state, Brazil. The WIS was submitted to all those packing lines with fruits at regular speed from the fruit reception to the packaging step. For each packing line at least four repetitions were conducted, and three levels of acceleration were considered: >10 G, > 20 G, and above 30 G. In parallel, a laboratory trial was conducted with the WIS and a commercial instrumented sphere, Instrumented Recorded Device – IRD (Techmark, Inc., Lansing, USA). The instrumented spheres were subjected to drop fall, using a dedicated equipment, from three known distances (20, 30 and 40 cm) to solid steel and two different padded surfaces, such as: polyurethane foam and courvin at a foam thickness 8 mm. The data for the three apple packinghouse showed different results as number of impacts at the three different thresholds (>10 G, > 20 G and > 30 G) and the maximum peak acceleration found. The orange packing line showed higher acceleration range peaks than the apple packinghouses. For the laboratory trial it was possible to detect different impact magnitudes among distinctive highs and surfaces. This new Wireless Instrument Sphere (WIS) showed to be an important device for measuring impact magnitude in fruit packing lines.

In this work, foundry sands (silica source) from metal casting and oyster shells (source of calcium carbonate) wastes were collected and characterized for use as raw materials for the production of soda-lime glasses. The wastes were characterized and classified according to their physical, chemical and mineralogical natures. The sands and crushed oyster shell samples had a particle size distribution suitable for the production of glasses (up to 200 µm). Chemical analysis confirmed the high silica content of sand samples (~ 96 %) and calcium oxide in oyster shells (~ 54 %). The results showed that the foundry sands and oyster shells are potential candidates to be used for the production of soda-lime glasses allowing thus the recovery of these wastes.

Aiming to increase the value of the castor bean cake through new technological applications, the objective of this study was the development of a biodegradable film using proteins extracted from castor bean cake. Specifically, the target of this work was to study the effect of protein extraction pH (10, 11 and 12) on some physical properties (mechanical properties, water solubility and moisture) of the films. The protein extraction was carried out in a reactor with 20 % castor bean cake dispersed in NaOH solutions (pH=10, 11 and 12), with mixing speed of 400 rpm and at 50 °C. The separation of the protein extract was made through centrifugation (4,000 rpm). The extracts were freeze-dried and analyzed to determine their chemical compositions. Sorption isotherms of these proteins were determined at 25 °C. The films were produced by casting, i.e., by dehydration of film-forming solutions prepared with constant concentrations of protein (7.5 g protein/100g film-forming solution); cross linking agent (0.8 g glutaraldehyde/100 g protein), and plasticizer (25 g of glycerol/100 g protein). The mechanical properties were determined at 25 °C by tensile and puncture tests and solubility in water and moisture were determined gravimetrically. The freeze-dried protein extracts constituted protein-rich (66-69 %) material at all studied pHs, and also mineral-rich (12-24 %) ones, the latter possibly due to the use of NaOH. No effect of the protein extraction pH was observed on the protein hygroscopicity. The films produced in this study had brownish color and homogeneous aspect, independently of the protein extraction pH. The pH influenced the mechanical properties of the films. Higher pH values provoked higher tensile strength and puncture force values: 4.5±0.1 MPa and 6.5±0.2 N, respectively, for the films made using the proteins extracted at pH 12. However, independently of the observed differences, those films were little extensible, with elongation at break and puncture deformation around 1.5 % and 3.2 %, respectively. Also, the film solubility in water was affected by the protein extraction pH. While films produced using the proteins extracted at pH=10 were totally water soluble, films of the proteins extracted at pH=12 had 58.5±0.2 % solubility. The moisture of the films was not affected by the pH, remaining around 13 %. In conclusion, the pH of the castor bean protein extraction has influence on the properties of the resulting films, without necessarily affecting the protein content of the freeze-dried extract.