Towards a cleaner process for furfural production and pectin extraction from brewery and winery residues.

The production of furfural and pectin extraction from brewer's spent grain (BSG) and grape marc (GM) represents a sustainable strategy for valorizing agro-industrial residues either through the recovery or the transformation into high-value compounds. Furfural, a versatile platform molecule with broad industrial applications, and pectin, widely used in the pharmaceutical and food industries, were extracted using an environmentally benign method combining phosphoric acid, thermal treatment, and ultrasound. A Box-Behnken experimental design was employed to evaluate the influence of pH, extraction time, and temperature on product yields.

Polyphenol-Enriched Pectin from Pomegranate Peel: Multi-Objective Optimization of the Eco-Friendly Extraction Process.

A multi-objective optimization was performed using response surface methodology to obtain a high-value-added product, pectin enriched in polyphenols, from pomegranate peel. For this purpose, a green extraction technique that combines citric acid and ultrasound was carried out considering three variables: time, pH, and temperature. The extraction procedure was optimized using the Box-Behnken design, these being the most suitable conditions, with an extraction time of 34.

Cleaner and sustainable processes for extracting phenolic compounds from bio-waste.

The frequent environment-unfriendly treatments of agro-industrial bio-wastes cause severe pollution through air pollution and through residual effluents and hazardous solid waste. These bio-wastes can contain phenolic compounds, forms of phenolic acids and flavonoids in plants. They are however the most abundant class of many phytochemicals and have been given great interest due to their health advantage and high economic value.