Beyond cellulose extraction: Recovery of phytochemicals and contaminants to revalorize agricultural waste

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biteb.2023.101339Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Seeds, peels, bagasse, and leaves are sources of phenolic compounds and cellulose.

  • Cereal residues require hydrolysis for phenolic compounds and cellulose extraction.

  • Phthalates in soil and vegetables must be separated to reduce their accumulation.

  • Dibutyl, bis(2-ethylhexyl) and dimethyl phthalates are the most abundant.

  • Process integration and separation strategies are required to reuse agro-waste.

Abstract

Most common cellulose extraction methods use alkaline conditions to break down lignin structure. Ferulic and gallic acids as well as rutin, luteolin or tannins are found in peels, seeds, leaves and pomace. Traditional alkaline cellulose extraction generates an effluent commonly known as black liquor that contains phytochemicals that can be isolated for multiple applications. Solvent extraction is being substituted by emerging technologies to increase the yield of phytochemicals but for their recovery from black liquor, mostly ethyl acetate partitioning has been used. When the starting purpose of extraction is the recovery of phytochemicals, cellulose rich residues are a by-product used for biofuel production, topical formulations or traditional cellulose substitutes. Along with phytochemicals, Phthalate Acid Esters (PAEs) found in mulching films used for intensive agriculture may be extracted. Therefore, circular economy strategies to revalorize waste not only have an impact on biomass reutilization but also could be an alternative for phthalates remediation.

Introduction

Along with the deforestation related with food production intensification, wood is still the main source of cellulose for different applications. The use of agroindustrial waste to recover cellulose has been demonstrated and, more importantly, the chemical properties of this material from non-wood sources are better for high value applications (Vallejo et al., 2021; Klaai et al., 2022). Agricultural residues are mainly composed of hemicellulose, cellulose, pectin, lignin and wax. Agricultural residues include sugar cane bagasse, rice straw, rice husks and wheat straw, among other parts that are not the harvested crop or fruit (Reshmy et al., 2022). These residues are being used as an alternative source of non-wood cellulose for diverse applications by traditional alkaline extraction. This process generates a black liquor rich in fermentable sugars, salts, and phytochemicals that may be recovered or reused for different purposes.

Emergent and green technologies for the recovery of polyphenols, carotenoids, polysaccharides and proteins from agricultural waste have been technologically demonstrated (Freitas et al., 2021). Circular bioprocesses scale-up and economic feasibility are urgently required for sustainable food production. However, it is also important to consider that for more than 30 years, the agricultural use of plastics has increased due to climate change and water stress and therefore, diverse pollutants in soils end up in food and agroindustrial residues. Therefore, circular bioprocesses are an alternative to stop the accumulation or reduce the concentration of these contaminants to prevent chronic diseases and promote sustainable food production.

Section snippets

Traditional methods for cellulose extraction

Different agroindustrial wastes are currently being used to recover cellulose in different ways and diverse applications (Table 1). Cellulose from fruit residues has been used to provide strength to paper and cardboard, cellulose from cereals as rice husks for the recovery of nanocrystals that are ultimately used in the production of hydrogels to transport medicines. In the case of straw and sugarcane, cellulose has been recovered for use in biofuels; similarly, an enzymatic hydrolysis of

Phenolic compounds found in agroindustrial residues

Agricultural activities generate tons of waste from different crops that contain diverse polyphenolic compounds (Table 3). Polyphenolic extracts yields vary from 2.5 % to 10.3 % (Vijayalaxmi et al., 2014) depending on the extraction or recovery method. Ferulic, gallic, caffeic and coumaric acids are the most abundant phenolic compounds in agroindustrial waste (Table 3). In wheat and rice, also ferulic, gallic and coumaric acids were the most numerous compounds (Jin et al., 2020). Cereals are an

Challenges for the separation of phthalate acid esters (PAEs) residuals from agroindustrial waste

During the recovery of by-products in lignocellulosic residues biorefineries, there are some challenges related to production costs, irregular biomass supply, land use, yield, and scaling up. But most importantly, current agricultural techniques, such as mulching, may represent a risk for the ecosystems (soil, water, plant matrix) and consumers (Chen et al., 2019). According to Li et al. (2021), the use of agricultural plastic films has increased the presence of microplastics and phthalate acid

Conclusions

Intensive agricultural practices generate high amounts of vegetal residues that are discarded with no further reuse. Cellulose is one of the major components of agroindustrial waste and in many countries it has been recovered for different commercial applications to substitute that extracted from wood. The most common method of cellulose extraction involves alkaline hydrolysis of vegetal tissue and the main byproducts are effluents typically known as black liquors. Agroindustrial waste also

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and the Institute for Obesity Research for providing the necessary support and tools for the review.

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