A Novel and Simpler Alkaline Hydrolysis Methodology for Extraction of Ferulic Acid from Brewer's Spent Grain and its (Partial) Purification through Adsorption in a Synthetic Resin.

Pedro Ideia,Paula C Castilho,Ivo Sousa-Ferreira

doi:10.3390/foods9050600

Pedro Ideia, Paula C Castilho + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/foods9050600

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Abstract

This work aims to develop simpler methodologies of extracting ferulic acid (FA) from brewer’s spent grain (BSG). BSG is produced by brewing companies at high amounts all over the year and does not possess a direct application. Thus, its use as raw material for extraction of bioactive compounds has gained attention in the last years. FA has different interesting applications in cosmetics, food industry, and pharmaceutics. Several studies aim for its extraction from BSG by various methods, namely alkaline hydrolysis. In the present work, we suggest the use of autoclave to process higher amounts of BSG in a lab scale. A simplification of the regular post-hydrolysis procedures is also proposed to decrease the number of experimental steps and energy costs and to simultaneously increase the extraction yield (up to 470 mg of FA per 100 g of BSG). The adsorption of extracted FA in a synthetic resin is suggested as a partial purification method.

Highlights

Due to the great political and social pressure in reducing pollution arising from industrial activities, large companies no longer consider residues as a waste but as valuable raw materials for other processes [1].Brewer’s spent grain (BSG) is the main solid by-product of brewing industry, produced during the wort elaboration step of beer production [1]
Sifting of freeze‐dried material revealed that was provided as a fine powder with particle size between 1 and 0.25 mm (Table 2), and it was further used without any separation
Because of its high availability and potential, several works are being developed around BSG

Summary

Introduction

Brewer’s spent grain (BSG) is the main solid by-product of brewing industry, produced during the wort elaboration step of beer production [1]. BSG is produced in a ratio of 20 kg per 100 L of beer [2], and the worldwide production is around 38.6 × 106 tons/year [3]. Despite being commonly used for animal and even human feed [4,5,6,7], excessive BSG availability is gaining attention for other applications, among which are the production or the extraction of high value added compounds, namely oligosaccharides [8], xylitol [9,10], and ferulic acid (FA) [11,12,13], a phenolic compound belonging to the hydroxycinnamic acids family. Due to its physiological functions—anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-thrombosis anti-microbial, and anti-cancer—as well as its protective effect against coronary disease, FA is considered one of the most important phenolic compounds [14]. Because FA is covalently linked to the structure of lignocellulosic biomass by ether and ester bonds, conventional extraction techniques (e.g., solid–liquid extraction) are not effective in its separation from the matrix

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