Impact of High-Pressure Homogenization on Enhancing the Extractability of Phytochemicals from Agri-Food Residues

Abstract

The primary objective of the Sustainable Development Goals is to reduce food waste by employing various strategies, including the reuse of agri-food residues that are abundantly available and the complete use of their valuable compounds. This study explores the application of high-pressure homogenization (HPH), an innovative nonthermal and green treatment, for the recovery of bioactive compounds from agri-food residues. The results demonstrate that the optimized HPH treatment offers advantages over conventional solid/liquid extraction (SLE), including shorter extraction time, solvent-free operation, low temperatures, and higher yields of phenol extraction (an approximately 20% improvement). Moreover, the micronization of agri-food residue-in-water suspensions results in a decrease in the size distribution to below the visual detection limit, achieved by disrupting the individual plant cells, thus enhancing suspension stability against sedimentation. These findings highlight the potential of HPH for environmentally friendly and efficient extraction processes.

Enhancing Cutin Extraction Efficiency from Industrially Derived Tomato Processing Residues by High-Pressure Homogenization

“…This finding aligns with previous results, which demonstrated that under processing conditions comparable to those utilized in this study, HPH treatment (80 MPa, 10 passes) reduced particle sizes of tomato pomace to a range of 55-90 µm, while HSM treatment resulted in a broader size range of 580-1020 µm. Furthermore, the variation in particle size induced by HPH pre-treatment also enhanced suspension stability [29].…”

“…The highest cutin content observed in HPH-treated samples confirmed the contribution of HPH to improving the cutin isolation process by depolymerizing cutin in an alkaline solution. This improvement is attributed to HPH's ability to micronize plant tissue in suspension [24,29], creating favorable conditions for subsequent chemical hydrolysis and enhancing extraction efficiency, even at low NaOH concentrations.…”

Nanostructured Cellulose-Based Aerogels: Influence of Chemical/Mechanical Cascade Processes on Quality Index for Benchmarking Dye Pollutant Adsorbents in Wastewater Treatment

“…Consequentially, new policies and efforts toward the design of appropriate management of AFRs have to be put in place to contribute to a sustainable development, respectful of the social and environmental facets [2]. Within this frame, the exploitation of AFRs presents new opportunities to extract and purify high value-added compounds [3][4][5],…”