Encapsulamento de vinhaça de cana-de-açúcar concentrada e ensaios de liberação de potássio

Abstract

Sugarcane vinasse is the main residue of sugarcane mills, for every liter of ethanol 10 to 18 liters of vinasse are produced. There are several techniques that are used to reduce the volume of in natura sugarcane vinasse. One of them is the removal of part of the water by evaporation, thus obtaining concentrated sugarcane vinasse. The present research was carried out with the aim of encapsulating concentrated sugarcane vinasse, using a sodium alginate. As the concentrated sugarcane vinasse has a composition very rich in macro and micronutrients, the solubilization of sodium alginate would not be possible without the pre-treatment of the vinasse with phosphate. After the treatment step, different concentrations of sodium alginate were tested, seeking the best encapsulation indexes, both for organic matter and potassium. Based on these results, the enrichment of sugarcane vinasse spheres with KCl was studied. This procedure was done to identify the bearing capacity of the spheres. Thinking about the improvement of the encapsulation efficiency and load capacity indexes, the spheres were submitted to the study of the influence of the osmotic potential on the encapsulation of organic matter and potassium. Obtaining an increase of 75.48% for encapsulation efficiency and 57.62% for load capacity, when compared to the control samples. the study of potassium release in water was done, a rapid release profile was identified, reaching equilibrium release within 30 minutes.