Microwave pretreatment for supercritical carbon dioxide extraction of lipid fraction of shrimp shell

Abstract

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, by the year 2022, crustacean production represented 10% of all global production from fisheries and aquaculture. The shell of the shrimp represents approximately 47% (w/w) of the animal2. It is therefore a potential source of pollution in the production (aquaculture) or processing (food industry) process, when not properly disposed. Currently, shrimp shell is partially used to produce chitin and chitosan by harsh acid and alkaline treatments, however, they pose an environmental threat and avoid the valorization of other compounds of industrial interest, such as the liposoluble compounds, with emphasis on carotenoids2. The application of the supercritical fluid extraction technique with the cooking and conventional drying of shrimp shells as a pretreatment for the extraction of carotenoids has already been studied. Despite the advantages shown by this pretreatment to increase the extracted carotenoids by breaking their association with macromolecules, the process has the disadvantage of requiring long processing time and high energy consumption. However, for sustainable biorefining processes, faster and more efficient pretreatment processes are required. The microwave technique for pretreatment of the sample to increase the extraction yield has already been proven in the literature for other raw materials with shorter processing time compared to conventional methods4. Within this context, this work aimed to study the efficiency of the MW pretreatment for the combined cooking and drying process in relation to the conventional method.