DC 10 Materials from natural products for the decaffeination process

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/141154

The advertised doctoral position will be carried out at Università degli Studi di Trieste over a period of 36 months. The recruited researcher will be supervised by Prof. Cristina Forzato and co-supervised by Prof. Federico Berti and work in the department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, led by Prof. Paolo Tecilla. The doctoral candidate will be registered for the PhD programme at the PhD School in Chemistry of  Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy. The project is carried out in cooperation with Demus s.p.a., a leading company in the field of decaffeination, and the candidate will be seconded for significant periods at the industrial site under the supervision of Ph. D. Eng. Yves Clyford Desobgo, head of R&D and industrial co-supervisor.

The project will focus on the identification design, synthesis, evaluation, characterisation, demonstration and exploitation at an industrial site of novel compounds and materials derived from natural molecules for the recovery of caffeine within a green and organic decaffeination process. Novel protocols for decaffeination will be set up based on the use of the novel compounds and materials. The quality of the recovered caffeine and the impact of the novel materials on the overall quality of decaffeinated coffee will be assessed. The end product will have to fully compliant with the rules and regulations for organic food. The stability of the materials will be studied in a real application at the pilot plant of Demus.

The main working tasks of the advertised position are

(1) Optimized systems based on natural molecules for the recovery of caffeine

(2) Protocols for green and organic recover of caffeine along the decaffeination process

In the frame of the research project, short-term (secondment) visits at other partners premises are envisioned. As per call requirements, candidate will spend at least half of the total contract time in a non-academic environment.