Produção de aspartame: abordagem descritiva, técnica e econômica

Abstract

In recent years the consumption of diet and light foods has increased significantly, promoting expansion in the areas of research oriented to the creation of new products and the development of others already existing. In this context, this study focuses on the study of N-(l-_-aspartyl)-l-phenylalanine methylester, better known as aspartame, a low calorie sweetener about 200 times sweeter than 10% sucrose and consumed in quantities exceeding 14000 tonnes worldwide per year. Composed primarily of the amino acids phenylalanine and aspartic acid, bound by a methyl ester (methanol). Since its adoption until today, it has been subject to numerous attacks and questions regarding its safety for food use, however, there are still doubts to the possible damages related to human health in the intake of the product. This work begins with a descriptive approach on aspartame, evaluating its chemical structure, as well as a small analysis about the compounds that constitute it and how it behaves in the human organism after metabolism. It also discusses the question of the toxicity of the product and how ANVISA treats its consumption in Brazil. In addition, it presents a pertinent study exposed in the book BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING (1996), on the routes of production of phenylalanine, one of the main constituents of aspartame. Some of the main routes of aspartame production carried out by the largest companies in the world, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages, and finally a brief analysis of a production route from the synthesis process, evaluating a theoretical example, through a mass balance, selecting the main equipments and raw material of the process, as well as some information of costs, with the objective of acquiring a clearer vision of the industrial synthetic production process of aspartame, since it is the main sweetener used in the food industry in the world, being able to reach great powers in relation to its development and discovery of new derivatives of the product.