Valentina joined the University of Birmingham in 2016 as a Research Fellow in the School of Chemical Engineering. She works within the Microstructure Engineering Research Group with a focus on “Drying and Rehydration”. Her research involves the drying of foods using different techniques with the aim of preserving the properties of the fresh products, improving the rehydration ability of the dried products and decreasing the energy costs and environmental impact of the process. Her work also includes the encapsulation/incorporation of active compounds into polymeric carriers for controlled drug delivery.
QUALIFICATIONS
- PhD in Chemical Engineering. 2013 – 2016
University of Salerno (School of Industrial Engineering), Italy
- MSc in Chemical Engineering. 2009 – 2012
University of Salerno (School of Industrial Engineering), Italy
- BSc in Chemical Engineering. 2005 - 2009
University of Salerno (School of Industrial Engineering), Italy
BIOGRAPHY
Valentina Prosapio awarded her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in Italy at the University of Salerno in April 2016. Her doctoral project was about “Micronization by supercritical antisolvent precipitation processes”. During the Ph.D., she dealt with some little studied aspects of Supercritical Antisolvent (SAS) process concerning the influence of the solvent on particle morphology, the processing of water-soluble compounds and the polymer/drug coprecipitation. The results of her research were subject of 12 papers on international journals and 5 proceedings. Moreover, between June and July 2014, she carried out part of her doctoral project abroad, at the Applied Raman Scattering Laboratory of the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, in Germany; the outcomes of this collaboration were subject of a book chapter of which she was co-author. Her scientific results have been shown also in international conferences, both as posters and oral presentations.
In June 2016, she moved to the UK and started to work as Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, within the "Microstructure Engineering Research Group", led by Professor Ian Norton.
TEACHING
Valentina gives the lecture “Effect of drying on food properties” on the module “Food Structure for Performance”.
POSTGRADUATE SUPERVISION
Valentina provides supervision for some Master and Ph.D. students within the group.
RESEARCH
Valentina’s post-doctoral project is about “Drying and rehydration”.
Drying is a conservative method that aims to prolong products’ shelf life, minimise packaging requirement and reduce the transport/storage costs. She is currently working with different drying processes (osmotic dehydration, freeze-drying, oven drying and supercritical supercritical CO2 drying) in order to identify the techniques, and the related operating conditions, that allow an efficient water desorption with a well retain of the fresh food properties. In addition, she started to study the effects of the drying process on the environment using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to identify the most energy consuming steps and understand where it is possible to intervene to minimise the emissions.
Valentina also works on the incorporation of active compounds into polymeric carriers for controlled drug delivery.
PUBLICATIONS
M. Cassanelli, V. Prosapio, I. Norton, T. Mills (2018) Design of a cost‐reduced flexible plant for supercritical‐fluid‐assisted applications. Chemical Engineering & Technology DOI: 10.1002/ceat.201700487
M. Cassanelli, V. Prosapio, I. Norton, T. Mills (2018) Acidified/basified gellan gum gels: The role of the structure in drying/rehydration mechanisms. Food Hydrocolloids 82: 346-354.
V. Prosapio, I. Norton, I. De Marco (2018) Simultaneous application of ultrasounds and firming agents to improve the quality properties of osmotic + freeze-dried foods. LWT - Food Science and Technology DOI: 10.1016/j.lwt.2018.05.068
I. De Marco, V. Prosapio, E. Reverchon, Supercritical Antisolvent Process: PVP/Nimesulide Coprecipitates, Advances in Bionanomaterials (2018) 37-49, Springer, Cham.
V. Prosapio, I. Norton, I. De Marco (2017) Optimization of freeze-drying using a Life Cycle Assessment approach: strawberries’ case study. Journal of Cleaner Production 168: 1171-1179
V. Prosapio, I. Norton, Influence of osmotic dehydration pre-treatment on oven drying and freeze drying performance, LWT - Food Science and Technology, 80 (2017) 401-408.
V. Prosapio, E. Reverchon, I. De Marco, Incorporation of liposoluble vitamins within PVP microparticles using supercritical antisolvent precipitation, Journal of CO2 Utilization 19 (2017) 230-237.
V. Prosapio, E. Reverchon, I. De Marco, Formation of PVP/nimesulide microspheres by supercritical antisolvent coprecipitation, The Journal of Supercritical Fluids 118 (2016) 19-26.
V. Prosapio, I. De Marco, E. Reverchon, PVP/corticosteroid microspheres produced by supercritical antisolvent coprecipitation, Chemical Engineering Journal 292 (2016) 264-275.
V. Prosapio, E. Reverchon, I. De Marco, Polymers' ultrafine particles for drug delivery systems precipitated by supercritical carbon dioxide + organic solvent mixtures, Powder Technology 292 (2016) 140-148.
V. Prosapio, E. Reverchon, I. De Marco, Production of lysozyme microparticles to be used in functional foods, using an expanded liquid antisolvent process, The Journal of Supercritical Fluids 107 (2016) 106-113.
M. Rossmann, D. Bassing, I. De Marco, V. Prosapio, E. Reverchon, E. Schlücker, A. Braeuer Analysis of Mechanisms for PVP-Active-Agent Formulation as in Supercritical Antisolvent Spray Process, in Process-Spray, Springer International Publishing, (2016) 987-1035.
V. Prosapio, E. Reverchon, I. De Marco, Coprecipitation of polyvinylpyrrolidone/β-carotene by supercritical antisolvent processing, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 54 (46) (2015) 11568-11575.
V. Prosapio, E. Reverchon, I. De Marco, Control of powders morphology in the supercritical antisolvent technique using solvent mixtures, Chemical Engineering Transactions43 (2015) 763-768.
V. Prosapio, I. De Marco, M. Scognamiglio, E. Reverchon, Folic acid–PVP nanostructured composite microparticles by supercritical antisolvent precipitation277 (2015) 286-294.
I De Marco, M Rossmann, V Prosapio, E Reverchon, A Braeuer, Control of particle size, at micrometric and nanometric range, using supercritical antisolvent precipitation from solvent mixtures: application to PVP, Chemical Engineering Journal 273 (2015) 344-352.
V. Prosapio, S. Cardea, E. Reverchon, I. De Marco, Supercritical carbon dioxide + organic solvent mixtures for the antisolvent micronization of sodium alginate, 21st International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering, CHISA 2014 and 17th Conference on Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction, PRES 2014.
V. Prosapio, E. Reverchon, I. De Marco, Antisolvent micronization of BSA using supercritical mixtures carbon dioxide + organic solvent, The Journal of Supercritical Fluids 94 (2014) 189-197.
I. De Marco, V. Prosapio, F. Cice, E. Reverchon, Use of solvent mixtures in supercritical antisolvent process to modify precipitates morphology: Cellulose acetate microparticles, The Journal of Supercritical Fluids 83 (2014) 153-160.