Morphological and biochemical modification of guava processing industrial bio-mass by dielectric barrier discharge atmospheric plasma and effect on yield of bio-materials

Guava pomace, an underutilized industrial byproduct from the guava processing fruit juice industry prone to have a wide range of bioactive and functional metabolites which has not been explored. Dielectric Barrier Discharge Atmospheric (DBDA) plasma is a novel non-thermal technology that has been widely used in the food processing field of research. In this study, the effect of DBDA plasma treatment under different treatment combinations i.e, 25 kV, 30 kV, and 35 kV for 5 min, 10 min and 15 min respectively for each voltage, on modification of morphological and biochemical properties of the guava pomace powder on improving the efficiency of extraction yield of biomaterials have been investigated. The response surface model (RSM) was then constructed using the experimental results of Box–Behnken Design (BBD) to obtain the optimal extraction conditions. The predicted optimal extraction conditions for DBDA plasma treatment as 35 kV for 15 min and solvent extraction conditions were determined as 80 °C for 360 min causing an increment of the oil yield up to 16.54% when extracted using solvent extractor with ethanol as a solvent. These results indicate that the DBDA plasma treatment previous to the extraction step extraction process can contribute to reduce the duration of extraction by 120 min, increasing the oil yield by 42.75% and improving the nutritional quality of the oil. This research helps to develop a novel and economical method for improving the extraction yield of oil and to fully valorizing the guava fruit processing industrial waste into biomaterial