Massimiliano Errico

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Southern Denmark

The Petlyuk configuration represents an attractive alternative to the simple distillation column sequences because of its potential in energy saving. This point was extensively discussed for three component mixtures. Moving to quaternary mixtures the complexity of the Petlyuk configuration represents the main barrier of its possible implementation...

In this work, a novel sustainable approach was proposed for the integral valorisation of Arctium lappa (burdock) seeds and roots. Firstly, a preliminary recovery of bioactive compounds, including unsaturated fatty acids, was performed. Then, simple sugars (i.e., fructose and sucrose) and phenolic compounds were extracted by using compressed fluids...

BACKGROUND Sour cherry (Prunus cerasus L.) stones are the major byproduct of the cherry industry and the efficient management of this biowaste can lead to achieving the food processing sustainability aimed at by the modern food industry. Despite its significant content of lipids, the valorization of cherry stone waste as feedstock for lipid extract...

Seasonal variation in fatty acids and minerals concentrations was investigated through the analysis of Pecorino Romano cheese samples collected in January, April, and June. A fraction of samples contained missing values in their fatty acid profiles. Probabilistic principal component analysis, coupled with Linear Discriminant Analysis, was employed...

The seasonal variation in fatty acids and minerals concentrations was investigated through the analysis of Pecorino Romano cheese samples collected in January, April, and June. A fraction of samples contained missing values in their fatty acid profile. Probabilistic Principal component analysis coupled with Linear Discriminant Analysis was employed...

From the time levulinic acid was listed as one of the top-12 building blocks for the sugars-high value compounds conversion, the interest in this compound increased. As part of its possible production route, the definition of viable separation schemes appears of paramount importance in the overall development of levulinic acid exploitation. Hybrid...

This paper explores the transformation of biowastes from food industry and agriculture into high-value products through four examples. The objective is to provide insight into the principles of green transition and a circular economy. The first two case studies focus on the waste generated from the production of widely consumed food items, such as...

This work investigates the prospects for exploitation of Gnaphalium viscosum (Kunth) abundant but with limited applications till present biomass. The feasibility of traditional techniques (two-phase solvent, and the benchmark Soxhlet extraction) and supercritical extraction without/with a cosolvent at T = 40-60 °C and p = 30-50 MPa was examined to...

Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) pomace is a by-product from the juice industry very rich in anthocyanins and other bioactive components. Recovery and purification of anthocyanins from the pomace is a viable valorization strategy that can be implemented to produce high-value natural food colorants with antioxidant properties. In this study, chokeber...

Global primary energy consumption has been steadily increasing since the Industrial Revolution, and it is showing no sign of slowing down in the coming years [...]

Climate change, depletion of fossil resources, constant population growth and increasing energy demand are issues of great concern. The idea of valorising tonnes of industrial waste produced on the planet every year appears as a possible pathway for a sustainable growth. Among different alternatives, lignocellulosic biomasses (LCBs) are the most im...

Lipids and coumarin were extracted from cumaru seeds using Soxhlet extraction (SE) with ethanol (EtOH) and ethyl acetate (EtOAc), scCO2, scCO2+EtOH and scCO2+EtOAc, either in a single or in sequential stages, and with PLE with EtOH. ScCO2+EtOAc provided yields from 28 to 31%, independently of the extraction conditions employed, and scCO2+EtOH provi...

In this work, a novel method was proposed for the conversion of waste cooking oil into biodiesel. A two-step approach based on a pretreatment with AlCl3•6H2O to convert FFA into the relevant methyl esters, followed by the complete transesterification of glycerides, under KOH catalysis in a reactive distillation column, was considered. The pretreatm...

Alcohols produced by fermentation of biomass or biowastes are generally referred to as bioalcohols to clearly identify their green origin and to differentiate them from their oil-derived counterpart. Bioalcohols belong to the more general family of biofuels, and they can be employed in the transportation sector, like in the case of bioethanol and b...

In this study, the design, optimization and dynamic modelling of a milk pasteurization unit have been developed, using the pseudo-component approach for describing milk properties. The fluid has been regarded as a mixture of five major categories, namely water, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and minerals. Exploiting the optimal pasteurizer configur...

Fucoidans, a diverse group of sulphated polysaccharides from brown algae, are biopolymers with many documented activities in vitro. While several factors are known to influence these activities, the degree of sulphation of the polymer is often regarded as a key parameter. The degree of sulphation on a biopolymer may be seasonally dependent, which,...

This work aimed to investigate the optimum conditions of pressure, temperature, ultrasound intensity, solvent concentration and solvent flowrate of ultrasound-assisted pressurized liquid extraction of anthocyanins from Aronia melanocarpa pomace. The novel setup operates with an aqueous solution of citric acid as extraction solvent. The optimization...

In this study, extraction yield of valuable compounds from brewer’s spent grain (BSG) using pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) was investigated varying temperature, solvent type, and flow rate at a constant pressure. The results were compared with Soxhlet extractions using the total phenolic compounds (TPC), total flavonoid compounds (TFC), antiox...

The recovery efficiency of waste valorization processes depends on an interplay of different conditions that are sometimes overlooked. Process optimization by the means of establishing mathematical relations between the process parameters and outputs is a strong tool to identify optimal operating conditions based on experimental data. In this study...

This study compares the yields of different extractions methods for a Brazilian variety of Humulus lupulus using scCO2, scCO2+ethanol, scCO2+ethyl acetate, and compressed propane. Extracts were characterized by total phenolics content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), and antioxidant activity (AA). The extraction yields were from 2.7 to 10.1 wt...

Factor analysis on mixed data (FAMD) was carried out on an open access fucoidan extract data base to uncover potential parameters which affect the use of fucoidans in cosmetics (elastase inhibition) and in the field of ophthalmology. The confidence ellipsoids for the fucoidan extracts exhibiting elastase inhibition, and the extracts showing no inhi...

Manure and digestate liquid fractions are nutrient-rich effluents that can be fractionated and concentrated using membranes. However, these membranes tend to foul due to organic matter, solids, colloids, and inorganic compounds including calcium, ammonium, sodium, sulfur, potassium , phosphorus, and magnesium contained in the feed. This review pape...

The development of a bio-based economy has its foundations in the development of efficient processes to optimize biomass potential. In this context there are a multitude of molecules that can be either synthetized or recovered from biomass, among those the so-called 12 building-blocks reported by the US Department of Energy. Even if their identific...

In a circular economy, products are made from renewable resources and the waste streams generated during production are either reused, recycled or recovered. The Biocascade methodology considers bio-waste as a resource that can be exploited to produce high-value products such as pharmaceuticals, food ingredients and nutrients; and low-value product...

The biojet fuel production has been considered a promising strategy to partially satisfy the aviation fuel demand. Recently, the biojet fuel obtained from the alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) process has been certified by the American Society of Testing Materials (ASTM). In this work, the modelling and simulation of the ATJ conventional process is presented, c...

This study reports the oil extraction from cumaru seeds by compressed propane (CPE). Extractions were performed varying temperature (20, 40, 60 °C), pressure (2, 6, 10 MPa), and average particle size (2, 1.7, 1.0, 0.5 mm). The results were compared respect to coumarin content, total phenolic content, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. It was...

In this chapter a historical and technical background for membrane gas separation is given, together with a review of the basic terms commonly used in the study of membrane separation technology. The mechanism of mass transport through the membrane, how this depends on the chosen membrane material, and how this affects the separation of gas molecul...

Renewable aviation fuel is the most promising alternative to reduce emissions in the aviation sector; its production is technically feasible, but not its cost respect to fossil jet fuel. Then, novel pathways need to be developed. One option is the processing through a biorefinery scheme, where biomass is completely converted to several products. Th...

Reactive distillation and membrane assisted reactive distillation have been considered as possible alternatives to extractive distillation for the concentration of ethanol from diluted streams. Aquaporin-based biomimetic forward osmosis membranes have been tested for ethanol tolerance and ethanol rejection. The experimental results were used to con...

Biodiesel is a renewable liquid biofuel based on fatty acid esters produced as a substitute to the use of mineral diesel. It can be applied as a pure fuel or as a blend with oil‐based diesel. Transesterification is the most common method implemented in the industrial sector to produce biodiesel. Enzyme‐catalyzed transesterification of castor oil ha...

The milk pasteurization process is nonlinear in nature and, for this reason, the application of linear control algorithms does not guarantee the obtainment of the required performances at every condition. The problem is here addressed by proposing an adaptive algorithm, which is obtained starting from an observer-based control approach. The main re...

In line with the growing environmental awareness developed along the last decades, modern societies are urged to evolve into sustainable economics where the reuse of organic wastes represents the key feedstock for a green transaction. The oil phase obtained from different biomasses has the potential to be a source of food supplements, medicines, co...

The extraction of anthocyanins from Aronia melanocarpa pomace from juice production was studied in the context of waste minimization and biomass valorization. The influence of temperature, solvent concentration and solid to solvent ratio was investigated. The concentration achieved with extraction was quantified by HPLC. The highest concentration o...

The solvent recovery section from the exhaust gas represents an important auxiliary part for an industrial CO2 post-combustion capture plant by the reactive absorption-stripping process. In this work, a partial condenser and a water-wash section configuration were designed to reach 1 ppm of solvent in the exhaust gas, and compared using the Total A...

The reuse of the liquid enzymes Eversa Transform and Resinase HT for castor oil transesterification was investigated. For each enzyme, the reactions were carried out at 35 °C with 6:1 methanol-to-oil molar ratio, 5 wt% enzyme and 5 wt% water by weight of oil, for 8 hours. After completion, the reaction mixture was centrifuged at 4000 rpm for 30 min...

In the present laboratory-scale study, the combination of washing and carbonation processes was examined to evaluate the feasibility to reduce the environmental impact of coal power plants. Three different washing solutions (tap, distilled and sea water) were used to pre-treat coal fly ash and the corresponding effect on direct gas-solid carbonatio...

Furfural is one of the oldest renewable chemicals, alongside ethanol, acetic acid and sugar. It has spurred much interest recently because furfural is listed by US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) as one of the 30 bio-based chemicals able to compete with fossil-based chemicals. Typically, furfural is produced by the hydrolysis reaction o...

Second-generation bioethanol represents an interesting alternative to liquid fuels in times of increased concerns over global warming and energy security. However, the recalcitrant structure of lignocellulosic biomass feedstock makes necessary a pretreatment process to increase the conversion of sugars. Diluted acid, liquid hot water, steam explosi...

This book focuses on modelling issues and their implications for the correct design of reactive absorption–desorption systems. In addition, it addresses the case of carbon dioxide (CO2) post-combustion capture in detail. The book proposes a new perspective on these systems, and provides technological solutions with comparisons to previous treatment...

In this chapter, the absorption section of two pilot-plant facilities, different in dimensions and operating conditions, is modeled. A discussion on the typical temperature bulge, which gives important indications on the behavior of the absorber, is reported. The Peclet number is evaluated for both the cases with reference to the material and the e...

In this chapter, the implementation in Aspen Plus® of the CO2 post-combustion capture by reactive absorption-stripping process model is presented. Components and thermodynamics in the Properties Environment are considered in the first place. Then, in the Simulation environment, the set-up of the RadFrac™ model—Rate-Based mode, considered mandatory...

In this chapter, the stripping section is modeled and experimental data from two different pilot-plant facilities are used for the validation. In Aspen Plus®, two different sets of degrees of freedom are chosen for the two plants, in order to study the effect of the proposed procedure on the evaluation of the output streams features in one case and...

In this chapter, the design of the absorption section of an industrial CO2 post-combustion capture system using MEA as solvent is analyzed. After the process description, the gas and liquid feed streams are characterized. A two-steps procedure is adopted for the design. Initially, the minimum number of units and the minimum solvent flow rate are de...

In this chapter, the design of the cross heat-exchanger, which interconnects the absorption and the stripping section, is examined in the first place. In this context, the stripper feed temperature is discussed in relation to its influence on the reboiler duty. Then, the flowsheet is completed with the design of the section dedicated to the recover...

The analysis of the stripping section design procedure of an industrial CO2-MEA post-combustion capture system is considered in this chapter. An alternative plant configuration without reflux is adopted with the aim of reducing the consumption of steam in the reboiler. Then, the most important operating parameters are described in detail. After the...

Public Link until December 23rd 2018: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1X-Cyx-vuGRlB. In this work, the use of enzymes as alternative catalysts for the production of biodiesel was evaluated. Due to the high price of enzymes, process optimization and economical evaluation is essential to evaluate the feasibility of their use. Two alternatives were pro...

Biobutanol is receiving a great interest from both academia and industry sectors, and some companies are already focused on revamping bioethanol plants to produce biobutanol. The recovery of fuel grade butanol by distillation was proved to be not economically sustainable. On the other side, hybrid flowsheets, obtained combining liquid-liquid extrac...

Lignocellulosic ethanol is a promising alternative to replace liquid fossil fuels for the transportation sector in the near future. Organosolv pretreatment has been tested as a method for separating lignin from the biomass and commercializing it as a biopolymer. Based on published laboratory scale data, we propose a feasible process flowsheet for o...

Ammonia can be recovered from liquid biogas digestate as ammonium sulfate by air stripping. A full-scale plant treating 30,000 kg h⁻¹ of digestate was simulated in Aspen Plus.The classical sequence stripper–absorber was modified by introducing a flash drum to reduce the buffer capacity. The stripped digestate was mixed with NaOH up to a pH value of...

Bioethanol from lignocellulosic feedstock rises as a promising alternative to replace liquid fossil fuels in the energy market for the next years. However, the variety of available biomass combined with the necessity of possible pretreatments and their particular features make it difficult to clearly identify the favorable process routes. In this s...

The production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic feedstock has proven to be a complex task due to the recalcitrant structure of the biomass. Organosolv pretreatment is a promising alternative to remove nearly pure lignin from the biomass and make the sugars available for conversion. However, in order for the organosolv pretreatment to be technical...

As an alternative to the use of chemical catalysts, immobilized enzyme Lipozyme 435 was evaluated as catalyst for biodiesel production, comparing its efficiency in the castor oil transesterification with methanol and ethanol. Different reaction conditions were assessed and optimized, including the reaction temperature (35 – 60 °C), alcohol-to-oil m...

The process analysis for the post-combustion CO2 capture using amine-based solvents is nowadays a fundamental step in its industrial scale design. In this work, the absorption-solvent regeneration system is deeply analyzed for different values of the loading in the solvent entering the absorber. The importance of the temperature and composition col...

Enzymes as catalysts for biodiesel production are emerging as a sustainable alternative to chemical catalysts. Enzymatic transesterification has the benefit of a low sensitivity to the water and free fatty acids content in the feed. The choice of feedstock represents a crucial point to the process economy. Based on this, and considering its low inf...

Biobutanol is receiving a great interest from both academia and industry sectors, and some companies are already focusing in revamping bioethanol plants to produce biobutanol. The recovery of fuel grade butanol by distillation was proved not to be economically sustainable. On the other side, hybrid flowsheets, obtained combining liquid-liquid extra...

The use of liquid enzymes for the production of biodiesel as an alternative to chemical catalysts requires significant investigation due to the lack of experimental data for the various feedstock and catalyst combinations. In this paper, reaction rates and kinetic modeling of the transesterification of castor oil with methanol using the enzyme Ever...

When distillation is chosen as the separation method for multicomponent mixtures, the design and the optimization of all the possible alternatives could be too time consuming or simply not possible. The systematic synthesis methodology, proposed in this chapter, allows the definition of a search space of alternatives where the simple column sequenc...

In the present work, biodiesel production by reaction of non-edible castor oil with methanol under enzymatic catalysis is investigated. Two liquid enzymes were tested: Eversa Transform and Resinase HT. Reactions were performed at 35 °C and with a molar ratio of methanol to oil of 6:1. The reaction time was 8 hours. Stepwise addition of methanol was...

The complexity of the phenomena involved in CO2 chemical absorption and solvent regeneration systems results in the necessity to develop reliable models to describe the steady state and the dynamic behavior of the process. In the present work, the modeling of the regeneration section of a post-combustion CO2-MEA system have been examined. A rigorou...

Organosolv pretreatment makes use of ethanol as a solvent to remove lignin and render the cellulose and hemicellulose present in the biomass available for conversion. However, solvent recovery is a crucial step to make organosolv pretreatment a competitive and reliable alternative for second generation bioethanol production. We used Aspen Plus v8.0...

Hybrid flowsheets are defined, in the context of process intensification, as alternatives suitable for replacing energy-intensive separation methods through the combination of more than one unit operation. Distillation is one of the first options considered for achieving a required separation; therefore, this chapter examines distillation-based hyb...

Experimental works showed that organosolv pretreatment is a promising method for bioethanol production from high lignin content biomass. From process design point of view, the solvent processing units together with the solvent recovery and recycle use have significant effects on the process synthesis, process structure and process economy. In this...

The synthetic production of butanol has completely substitute the original fermentation process where butanol, acetone and ethanol were simultaneously produced in the so called ABE process. As most of the bio-alcohols produced by fermentation, the dilution in water makes their separation challenging due to the presence of azeotropes. The bio-relate...

Coal ashes are normally considered as a waste obtained by the coal combustion in thermal power plants. Their utilization inside the site where are produced represents an important example of sustainable process integration. The present study was performed to evaluate the application of a gas-solid carbonation treatment on coal fly ash in order to a...

This study reports the assessment of helical coil-packed bed columns for Zn adsorption on bone char. Zn adsorption breakthrough curves have been obtained using helical coil columns with different characteristics and a comparison has been conducted with respect to the results of straight fixed-bed columns. Results showed that the helical coil adsorp...

Sunflower oil (SF) and its methyl ester as well as supercritical fluid (SC-CO2 + 5%wt EtOH) have recently been shown as potential green solvents which could substitute traditional organic solvents. This study investigates the economic feasibility of using these green solvents to extract astaxanthin (ASX) from shrimp processing waste. The feasibilit...

Process intensification emerges as an important tool in the synthesis of multicomponent distillation configurations aimed at the reduction of the energy use and capital costs. Operational and fixed costs savings coupled with simplicity and controllability design configurations appear as an essential characteristic for industrial acceptance of inten...

Thermally coupled distillation columns represent a very interesting option for the intensification of distillation systems in order to reduce the energy consumption, and, as a consequence, the environmental impact of the separation process. Several thermally coupled distillation schemes can be generated for the separation of multicomponent mixtures...

BACKGROUND: Butanol produced from fermentation has attracted the interest of research groups because its physicochemical properties show several enhancements over bioethanol. Recent studies have proposed alternative methods to separate and purify biobutanol from a fermentation broth. These alternatives offer energy and economic savings; in addition...

The choice of the optimal configuration for the separation of multicomponent mixtures represents one of the prevailing problems in the process industry. Simple distillation column sequences have been the favorite choice for long time, until the increase of the energy price makes these configurations no more competitive from an economic point of vie...

The choice of the optimal configuration for the separation of multicomponent mixtures represents one of the prevailing problems in the process industry. Simple distillation column sequences have been the favorite choice for long time, until the increase of the energy price makes these configurations no more competitive from an economic point of vie...

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The development of new technologies for biobutanol production by fermentation has resulted in higher butanol concentrations, less by-products and higher volumetric productivities during fermentation. These new technology developments have the potential to provide a production process that is economically viable in comparison to the petrochemical pa...

Sunflower oil and its methyl ester have recently been shown as potential green solvents which could substitute traditional organic solvents. This study investigates the economic feasibility of using these green solvents to extract astaxanthin from shrimp processing waste. The feasibility of commercial use of the green solvents under plausible proce...

Background Bioethanol is a green fuel considered as a sustainable alternative to petro-derived gasoline. The transport sector higly contributes to carbon dioxide emission and consequently has a negative impact to the air quality and it is responsible to the increase of the greenhouse effect. The availability of enviromental friendly and economic fu...

For an N-component mixture, a separation sequence with only sharp splits needs the minimum number of N-1 simple columns with 2(N-1) heat exchangers to achieve N pure products. As the number of columns and heat exchangers are the dominant criteria to evaluate a distillation configuration, traditional distillation configurations with only sharp split...

Recent technologies for biobutanol production by fermentation have resulted in higher final biobutanol concentrations, less fermentation by-products and higher volumetric productivities during fermentation, together with less energy intensive separation and purification techniques. These new technology developments have the potential to provide a p...

From its first introduction in 1965, the Petlyuk column received a high interest in the research community. Applied for the separation of three-component mixtures, the Petlyuk column is able to perform the separation with a reduced number of equipment and with a consistent reduction of the energy consumption compared to the classical sequences with...

The separation of a multicomponent stream by distillation represents a common problem in the industrial field. The possibility to realize the same separation task by means of different sequences have opened an unique research topic focused on the definition of a complete searching space that includes all the possible alternatives. The searching spa...

The possible structural changes of a non-sharp quaternary distillation configuration are considered. For the reference configuration composed of four columns, different alternatives are generated following the process intensification principle to reduce the number of equipment units. The intensified systems with three or two columns are obtained, i...

In the last decades, a huge number of studies on carbon dioxide removal have been presented in the literature. The non-equilibrium nature of the process involves an accurate definition of the parameters' correlations and of the model's assumptions. One of the most important assumptions when developing a process model is the definition of the number...

While dividing-wall column for ternary Petlyuk configuration has received wide applications in industries, the dividing-wall column for quaternary Petlyuk configuration has not reached the same applications due to its complexity in both design and control. In this work, the synthesis on the alternative intensified distillation systems than Petlyuk...