Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SB2-O010
RECREATION OF THE WATER ADSORPTION PROCESS IN SEEDS OF
SOLUANUM LYCOPERSICUM L. (TOMATO) BY MONTE CARLO
SIMULATION
Iván-David Buitrago Torres 1 , Javier Torres Osorio 2 , Elisabeth Restrepo Parra 1
1 Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Departamento de Física y Química, Colombia.
2
Universidad de Caldas, Departamento de Física, Colombia.
In this work, we obtained isotherm adsorption curves the simulation of water
adsorption upon a surface based in the tomato’s seed coat by Monte Carlo
simulation. The analysis of the adhesion of water molecules in biological
material like seeds or foodstuff and the consequent acquisition of adsorption
isotherm curves, requires a huge experimental effort, this is the reason why the
simulation of the process for obtaining those curves, is an important tool for
supporting future researches in plant physiology and in foodstuff and seeds
storage. The simulated surface was recreated data obtained experimentally of
the tomato seed characterization, upon this surface, MC simulations of water
molecules were performed. Different environments were used for the
simulations, with constant temperature, and different humidity values with
Steele and Lennard Jones potential functions, finally adsorption isotherm curves
were obtained each simulation, once the equilibrium was reached. The results
show an agreement between the experimental data of seeds adsorption, where
saline solutions with water activity between 0.216 and 1.000 were used and the
curves were adjusted to D’Arcy-Watt and Modified Oswin models and they open
a new panorama to the models of water adsorption over plant material.
Acknowledgment:
We want to thank Universidad de Caldas, the Vicerrectoría de Investigación and
the Universidad Nacional de Colombia for their support and belief in this project.
Keywords: Adsorption, Isotherm, Grand Canonical Monte Carlo
Presenting authors email: idbuitragot@unal.edu.co