Reasons and benefits associated with ISO 9001 - Certification for sugar and ethanol companies

With increasing business competitiveness, companies have sought to adapt their processes and / or products to worldwide established quality standards in order to achieve a greater share of consumers having as favorable aspect the quality assurance of the products and/or services provided. It was observed that companies of different sizes have different challenges regarding the certification however, the degree of difficulty is the same for all of them. The objective of this paper is to verify the reasons for the implementation of ISO 9001, the obstacles encountered during the implementation, the benefits arising from the use of the quality management system and the degree of difficulty to implement this standard. This work was developed based on a survey involving companies certified with ISO 9001:2008 from the productive sector of sugar, ethanol and derivatives of sugarcane, located in all Brazilian states. It was observed that companies of different sizes have different challenges regarding the certification however the degree of difficulty is the same for all of them. Thus, we believe that expected results represent a very important contribution to examining the reasons, benefits and difficulties of the ISO 9001 to both, the companies and certification bodies, and to researchers.

Engineering of fatty acid production and secretion in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências - Especialidade em Biologia

Optimization of low-cost nutritional supplementation for lignocellulosic ethanol fermentation

[Excerpt] Bioethanol from lignocellulosic materials (LCM), also called second generation bioethanol, is considered a promising alternative to first generation bioethanol. An efficient production process of lignocellulosic bioethanol involves an effective pretreatment of LCM to improve the accessibility of cellulose and thus enhance the enzymatic saccharification. One interesting approach is to use the whole slurry from treatment, since allows economical and industrial benefits: washing steps are avoided, water consumption is lower and the sugars from liquid phase can be used, increasing ethanol concentration [1]. However, during the pretreatment step some compounds (such as furans, phenolic compounds and weak acids) are produced. These compounds have an inhibitory effect on the microorganisms used for hydrolysate fermentation [2]. To overcome this, the use of a robust industrial strain together with agro-industrial by-products as nutritional supplementation was proposed to increase the ethanol productivities and yields. (...)

Contributos para a elucidação do modo de ação de própolis português: o caso do própolis do Pereiro

Dissertação de mestrado em Genética Molecular