Review of Green Food Processing techniques. Preservation, transformation, and extraction

This review presents innovative food processing techniques and their role in promoting sustainable food industry. These techniques (such as microwave, ultrasound, pulse electric field, instant controlled pressure drop, supercritical fluid processing) in the frontiers of food processing, food chemistry, and food microbiology, are not new and were already used for> 30 years by academia and industry. We will pay special attention to the strategies and the tools available to make preservation, transformation and extraction greener and present them as success stories for research, education and at industrial scale. The design of green and sustainable processes is currently a hot research topic in food industry. Herein we aimed to describe a multifaceted strategy (innovative technologies, process intensification, bio-refinery concept) to apply this concept at research, educational, and industrial level.Industrial relevance: Green Food Processing could be a new concept to meet the challenges of the 21st century, to protect both the environment and consumers, and in the meantime enhance competition of industries to be more ecologic, economic and innovative. This green approach should be the result of a whole chain of values in both senses of the term: economic and responsible, starting from the production and harvesting of food raw materials, processes of preservation, transformation, and extraction together with formulation and marketing

Batch and Continuous Ultrasound Assisted Extraction of Boldo Leaves (Peumus boldus Mol.)

Vegetal extracts are widely used as primary ingredients for various products from creams to perfumes in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutic and cosmetic industries. Having concentrated and active extract is essential, as the process must extract as much soluble material as possible in a minimum time, using the least possible volume of solvent. The boldo leaves extract is of great interest for the industry as it holds a great anti-oxidant activity due to high levels of flavonoids and alkaloids such as boldine. Ultrasound Assisted Extraction (UAE) has been used to improve the efficiency of the plant extraction, reducing extraction time, increasing the concentration of the extract with the same amount of solvent and plant material. After a preliminary study, a response surface method has been used to optimize the extraction of soluble material from the plant. The results provided by the statistical analysis revealed that the optimized conditions were: sonication power 23 W/cm2 for 40 min and a temperature of 36 °C. The optimized parameters of the UAE provide a better extraction compared to a conventional maceration in terms of process time (30 min instead of 120 min), higher yield, more energy saving, cleanliness, safety and product quality

"In situ" extraction of essential oils by use of Dean-Stark glassware and a Vigreux column inside a microwave oven: a peocedure for teaching green analytical chemistry.

International audienc

Batch and Continuous Ultrasound Assisted Extraction of Boldo Leaves (Peumus boldus Mol.)

Vegetal extracts are widely used as primary ingredients for various products from creams to perfumes in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutic and cosmetic industries. Having concentrated and active extract is essential, as the process must extract as much soluble material as possible in a minimum time, using the least possible volume of solvent. The boldo leaves extract is of great interest for the industry as it holds a great anti-oxidant activity due to high levels of flavonoids and alkaloids such as boldine. Ultrasound Assisted Extraction (UAE) has been used to improve the efficiency of the plant extraction, reducing extraction time, increasing the concentration of the extract with the same amount of solvent and plant material. After a preliminary study, a response surface method has been used to optimize the extraction of soluble material from the plant. The results provided by the statistical analysis revealed that the optimized conditions were: sonication power 23 W/cm2 for 40 min and a temperature of 36 °C. The optimized parameters of the UAE provide a better extraction compared to a conventional maceration in terms of process time (30 min instead of 120 min), higher yield, more energy saving, cleanliness, safety and product quality

Thymol-enriched extract from Thymus vulgaris L leaves: Green extraction processes and antiaggregant effects on human platelets

International audienceThis work focuses on the selection and the optimization of an efficient green-extraction method, used to recover a thymol-enriched extract from thyme (Thymus vulgaris L), as well as the evaluation of the inhibitory effect of this latter on the human platelet aggregation. Different innovative extraction techniques, namely bead milling extraction, ultrasound and microwave assisted extraction, were tested for their ability to recover a high added value extract from thyme. Among all tested eco-extraction techniques, microwave extraction (MAE) was the best method in term of its extraction yield (20.84% ± 0.51), thymol concentration (731.71 mg/g) and total phenolic (23.53 ± 1.83 mg (GAE)/g of extract) and flavonoid (6.22 ± 0.35 mg of QE/g of extract) contents. Moreover, thyme extract obtained by microwave assisted extraction (TMAE) showed the most active antioxidant effect comparing to the other tested extracts. Based on these results, TMAE was chosen to be evaluated for its antiplatelet effect. Thereby, arachidonic acid, collagen and ADP were used to induce the platelet aggregation on human platelet rich plasma taken from healthy controls and results revealed that TMAE strongly inhibited the induced platelet aggregation. Indeed, TMAE exhibited potent antiaggregant activity by inhibiting platelet activation, secretion and aggregation. Additionally, cytotoxicity assay on normal HEK-293 cells showed that TMAE has no cytotoxic effect even at high concentration (8 mg/ml) and can further be taken up to various biomedical applications mainly in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases