Tuned biofunctional polyphenol extracts obtained by microwave and pressure pretreatment

Abstract

Grape pomace, a valueless residue from winery industry, presents a high potential that can contribute to revaluate and improve the sustainability of the winery process. This residue has a great antioxidant activity due to its large polyphenol concentration. Nowadays, polyphenols are extracted by time-consuming and expensive traditional methods that also compromise their bioactivity. Microwave assisted extraction has been proved to be a better alternative. Their incorporation considerably reduces energy requirements and equipment size. However, microwave implementation at industrial scale is difficult because of the limitations in this technology. For this reason, in this work, microwaves have been used only as a short pretreatment of a conventional extraction process. The objective was to determine the possibility of developing a selective extraction process. An optimization of the microwave pretreatment conditions was accomplished in order to obtain different biofunctional extracts. The evaluation of these extracts was performed by pre-clinical assays; especially their action on gut health, cardiovascular, anti-obesity, antidiabetes and beauty issues.