Title : Extraction and characterization of polyphenols from fruits and vegetable waste through green extraction technologies with special reference to antioxidant profile
Abstract:
Food insecurity is deemed as one of the biggest challenges faced by the developing economies and Pakistan is no more exception. Moreover, the food waste further amplified the scarcity. The utilization of food waste is considered one of the prime strategies to support the circular economy and food security. The mandate of the current investigation was to extract and characterize the polyphenols from selected fruits and vegetable waste via green extraction technologies. Purposely, banana, orange, apple, onion and garlic processing industry by-products (peel& husk) were collected and subjected to compositional analysis followed by nutritional profiling with special reference to minerals. Later, the antioxidants from the studied peel were extracted by adapting the supercritical and ultrasound added extraction techniques alongside conventional extraction. The results indicated that the tested peels exhibited a promising amount of fiber and protein alongside K, Mg, iron, sodium and calcium. Among the extraction modules, supercritical at 3000psi elucidated the highest total phenolic contents (TPC), Total flavonoids (TF), DPPH, FRAP, ABTS activity as 473.73±23.6 mg GAE/100g, 126.39±9.54 mg CE/100g, 53.81±3.82 (%), 22.24±0.25 µM Fe+2/g and 12.14±0.15µM TE/g, respectively followed by ultrasound and conventional extraction. Among the peels, onion peel showed the highest antioxidant activity as 914.44±39.4 mg GAE/100g) 178.19±14.5 mg CE/100g, 82.47±5.48 %, 30.22±0.19 µM Fe+2/g and 17.33±0.26 µM TE/g for TPC, TF, DPPH, FRAP and ABTS, respectively.
