Nowadays, one of the biggest challenges for society is the development of appropriate technologies to process the waste residue produced worldwide. In the food sector, the generated waste is ...estimated to be nearly billions of tons annually. Brazil is one of the most representative examples of the economic and industrial potential of underexplored residues and raw materials. The palm heart, scientifically known as Bactris gasipaes , mainly its fruits, is one of the many examples found in Brazilian flora. The fruits have significant amounts of carotenoids, namely, the all- trans -β-carotene, all- trans -lycopene and the rare all- trans -γ-carotene, which are considered as excellent raw materials of commercial interest. However, the main challenge that remains is their efficient recovery. This work proposes the development of a performant process of extraction mediated by the use of ionic liquid (IL)-based ethanolic solutions. Four ILs were examined, as well as the solid–liquid ratio R (S/L) , number of extractions, the time of extraction, the co-solvent-ratio R (IL/E) and the homogenization method employed. After selecting the best solvent (C 4 mimBF 4 ) and process conditions (extraction yield of 172 ± 18 μg carotenoids g dried biomass −1 ), the IL-ethanolic solution recyclability was tested by freezing/precipitating the IL (maximum of 94% of IL recovered), proving its success for at least 10 cycles while decreasing the process carbon footprint by 50% compared with the conventional method using acetone.
Natural bioactive compounds have been attracting growing interest from the industries as a “greener” alternative to synthetic raw materials/products. Rhodotorula glutinis yeast naturally synthesizes ...added value compounds such as lipids and carotenoids, commonly used for cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and food applications. R. glutinis constitutes a rigid cell-wall structure, requiring energy-saving and efficient cell disruption methods for a sustainable recovery of the intracellular compounds. A simple and ecofriendly technology using mixed bio-based solvents (biosolvents) was evaluated here as an alternative platform to permeabilize yeast cells and to improve the selective recovery of β-carotene, torularhodin, torulene and lipids. The extraction ability of pure and solvent mixtures (methanol, ethanol, ethyl acetate, isopropanol, cyclohexane and 2-methyl tetrahydrofuran) was initially screened, demonstrating the clear impact of using mixtures to improve the extraction yields (up to three-fold increase). After identifying ethyl acetate/ethanol/water as the solvent mixture with a greater capacity to extract carotenoids and lipids, the selective recovery of carotenoids and lipids was enhanced by optimizing the solvent mixture composition ratio. Envisioning the industrial application, an integrated biosolvent-based downstream platform was designed. Two different strategies were investigated to further isolate carotenoids and lipids from R. glutinis biomass and to recycle the ethyl acetate/ethanol/water mixture: (i) precipitation using cold acetone; (ii) sequential liquid–liquid extraction. The integrated process for each strategy was compared with a conventional extraction procedure in terms of recovery efficiencies and its environmental impact. Regardless of the strategy, it is shown that the mixture of ethyl acetate, ethanol and water (15/27/58% w/w) can be reused up to three consecutive extractive cycles, ensuring high extraction efficiency yields, while decreasing the process carbon footprint by about 75% compared to the conventional method.
Marine fish industries discard huge amounts of fish waste every year, which in turn impose problems of environmental pollution and loss of economic value. About 75% of the total weight of fish is ...discarded in the form of skins, bones, fins, heads, guts, and scales, which contain high levels of collagen type I. Generally, major sources for commercial collagens are the skin and bone of pigs and cows; however, these sources are chiefly associated with the risk of transference of zoonotic diseases or religious issues. Traditional protocols applied to the extraction of collagen are outdated, mainly with respect to present demands to develop more sustainable processes. This work explores the use of sustainable solvents, such as deep eutectic solvents (DES), to develop a more efficient, cost-effective and biocompatible process to extract collagen from waste from the fish industry waste. The extraction of collagen from the skin of Atlantic cod (
Gadus morhua
) using aqueous solutions of various eutectic solvents was studied, and after selection of the best solvent, an aqueous solution of urea (U) and lactic acid (LA) at a molar ratio of 1 : 2 (U : LA 1 : 2), the collagen extracted was properly characterized using SDS-PAGE, CD, FTIR, and XRD, and shown to be of type I. The results obtained here demonstrate an improvement in the yield and quality of the extracted collagen when eutectic mixtures were applied instead of acetic acid. After optimization of the process conditions, a maximum extraction yield of 6% was obtained for the aqueous solution of U : LA 1 : 2 at 0.75 M. The present work demonstrates the potential use of codfish skin waste and an aqueous solution of a DES to develop a more environmentally-friendly process to obtain high-quality collagen type I. It is an effort to convince industries to valorize their own residues under the guidelines of a circular economy.
Deep eutectic solvents as efficient solvents to extract and purify collagen from codfish skins.
Herein, the effective use of aqueous biphasic systems (ABS) in Fast Centrifugal Partition Chromatography (FCPC) for the purification of PEGylated cytochrome c conjugates is shown. High recoveries ...(between 88% and 100%) and purities (∼100%) were obtained. Both the unreacted cytochrome c and solvents may be recovered and reused, thus allowing the design of a sustainable process in a continuous regime for the isolation of bioconjugates. This process allowed the reduction of the complete E-factor and carbon footprint at
circa
100% and 67%, respectively, reinforcing the important environmental contribution of recycling units.
Aqueous biphasic systems (ABS) were applied in fast centrifugal partition chromatography (FCPC) for the purification of PEGylated cytochrome c conjugates.
In this work, a process for the extraction and purification of carotenoids from the fruit Bactris gasipaes was developed. Ethanolic and aqueous solutions of ionic liquids (ILs) and surfactants were ...evaluated on the extraction of these pigments. Thus, we developed an optimized sustainable downstream process mediated by the best solvent with further isolation of the carotenoids and the recyclability of the IL used. The process was characterized not only in terms of efficiency but also regarding its environmental impact. The recyclability of the solvents as well as the high efficiency (maximum yield of extraction of carotenoids = 88.7 ± 0.9 μgcarotenoids·gdried biomass –1) and the low environmental impact of the integrated process developed in this work were demonstrated. In the end, in order to incorporate functional activity for an alternative food-packaging material, carotenoids were successfully applied on the preparation of chitosan-based films with excellent results regarding their mechanical parameters and antioxidant activity.
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Phenolic compounds are ubiquitous biomolecules exhibiting a wide range of physiological properties, with application in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical fields. In this work, aqueous biphasic ...systems (ABS) formed by polyethylene glycol and sodium polyacrylate, and inorganic salts or ionic liquids as electrolytes, were applied for the purification of caffeic, ferulic and protocatechuic acids (CA, FA, and PA, respectively), vanillin (VN) and syringaldehyde (SA), followed by the use of centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) to reinforce the fractionation process scale-up. In single-step experiments in ABS, high selectivities and adequate partition coefficients ( K CA = 2.78 ± 0.20; K PA = 0.44 ± 0.04; K FA = 0.23 ± 0.01; K VN = 1.12 ± 0.05 and K SA = 1.23 ± 0.02) were achieved using ABS formed by sodium chloride as the electrolyte. This system was further applied in CPC, allowing an efficient separation of the five phenolic compounds after the optimization of the equipment operational conditions, while demonstrating the potential of polymer-based ABS to be used in liquid–liquid chromatography. Finally, the recovery of the phenolic compounds (between 65 and 87%) with high purity from the ABS phases was demonstrated, allowing the reuse of the ABS phase-forming components, which was proved to be of low environmental impact. In fact, in a scenario where the polymeric phases are reused, the carbon footprint is decreased to 36%, as the consumption of new chemicals and water reduces considerably.
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•Ionic liquids and biosolvents show in vivo safety.•Analysis exposes cost and production obstacles in carotenoid recovery.•Research needs joint efforts in advancing sustainable ...yeast-based carotenoid production.
Microorganisms, such as yeasts, filamentous fungi, bacteria, and microalgae, have gained significant attention due to their potential in producing commercially valuable natural carotenoids. In recent years, Phaffia rhodozyma yeasts have emerged as intriguing non-conventional sources of carotenoids, particularly astaxanthin and β-carotene. However, the shift from academic exploration to effective industrial implementation has been challenging to achieve. This study aims to bridge this gap by assessing various scenarios for carotenoid production and recovery. It explores the use of ionic liquids (ILs) and bio-based solvents (ethanol) to ensure safe extraction. The evaluation includes a comprehensive analysis involving Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), biocompatibility assessment, and Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) of two integrated technologies that utilize choline-based ILs and ethanol (EtOH) for astaxanthin (+β-carotene) recovery from P. rhodozyma cells. This work evaluates the potential sustainability of integrating these alternative solvents within a yeast-based bioeconomy.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
R-phycoerythrin is a high added-value protein found in red macroalgae with several interesting properties. Despite the promising results found when R-phycoerythrin is used as an optically active ...center in luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs), it still has some problems that can be attributed to the low stability of the R-phycoerythrin in the presence of the specific contaminant proteins found in the crude extract. The development of downstream strategies able to reduce the use of environmentally hazardous solvents, while improving the purification without compromising the R-phycoerythrin structural integrity is still the biggest challenge to overcome. Aqueous micellar two-phase systems (AMTPS) appear as an appealing fractionation approach since they allow the processing of systems with larger water contents, while displaying great selectivity and biocompatibility with several biomolecules. Moroever, AMTPS that mix surfactants and surface-active ionic liquids are shown to significantly enhance protein purification. In this work, mixed AMTPS were applied to the R-phycoerythrin purification from red macroalgae. After the process optimization, this work proposes the application of two consecutive steps of purification as the final process to isolate R-phycoerythrin from the remaining proteins composing the crude extract, while maintaining the structural integrity of R-phycoerythrin, as requested to be used in the LSC. Besides a good performance, the two-step approach developed was also shown to have a lower environmental impact with a carbon footprint decrease of 16%, when compared with the conventional AMTPS.
Phycobiliproteins are fluorescent proteins mainly produced by red macroalgae and cyanobacteria. These proteins, essential to the survival of these organisms, find application in many fields of ...interest, from medical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic to food and textile industries. The biggest obstacle to their use is the lack of simple environmental and economical sustainable methodologies to obtain these proteins with high purity. In this work, a new purification process is proposed based on the induced precipitation of the target proteins followed by ultrafiltration. Purities of 89.5% of both phycobiliproteins and 87.3% of R-phycoerythrin were achieved using ammonium sulfate and poly(acrylic acid) sodium salts as precipitation agents (followed by an ultrafiltration step), while maintaining high recovery yields and protein structure stability. Environmental analysis performed to evaluate the proposed process shows that the carbon footprint for the proposed process is much lower than that reported for alternative methodology, and the economic analysis reveals the cost-effective character associated to its high performance. This work is a step toward more sustainable and effective methodologies/processes with high industrial potential.
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•Valorization of crustaceans’ shells wastes was achieved.•Acetic acid was used as the main solvent in the developed process.•A multi-product process was developed to integrate the recovery of all ...components.•The crustacean shell wastes biorefinery turned into a business model.•LCA proved that this biorefinery platform is environmentally friendly.
Marine-derived food wastes mainly include seafood, fish and feed production resources. From the crustaceans traded annually, 6 to 8 million tonnes of valuable shrimp, lobster and/or crab shells waste are produced worldwide. In this systemic work, the researchers with complementary technical expertise, covering the fields of chemical engineering design, chemistry, materials, predictive environmental sciences and economy, worked together to develop a sustainable multiproduct pipeline for the biorefinery of unwanted by-products. All process bio-products from the shells waste were recovered, separated, and purified. Only harmless solvents, namely water, the protonating acetic acid under mild functional conditions and buffers, conjugated with solid–liquid extraction, centrifugation, and membrane ultrafiltration technologies were applied. Here, a success business model is shown after its standardised evaluation in terms of purification performance, economic impact, and life cycle assessment has been performed, driving this sector towards a sustainable ocean-based economy.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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