Abstract
Currently, there is a general trend towards reutilizing industrial by-products that would otherwise be discarded or considered as waste, aiming to explore them as alternative sources of valuable compounds. The apple pomace remaining from cider and apple juice industries represents a high-potential source of bioactive compounds with putative application in food or pharmaceutical-related products. Accordingly, the work reported herein was conducted to characterize the phenolic compounds in apple pomace from Belgium and Spain, as well as to evaluate its chemical composition and particular types of bioactivity. As a proof of concept, a new hydrogel was prepared, incorporated with the bioactive compounds and pectin extracted from apple pomace, aiming to obtain the most organic formulation possible. Independently of the extracting agent, it became evident that using lyophilization as the drying step is a better choice than thermal processes as it yielded a richer phenolic profile (fifteen individual compounds), with 5-O-caffeoylquinic acid as the major compound (66 to 114 mg/100 g dw) in Belgian samples. In general, the hydroethanolic extracts showed the strongest antioxidant and antimicrobial (particularly against Propionibacterium acnes: MIC = 2.5 mg/mL) activities. This result, together with the lipid nature of human skin, led it to be chosen as the extract type to be incorporated in the hydrogel. In general, apple pomace stood out as a valuable source of bioactive compounds, especially polyphenols and pectin, with good potential to be incorporated in dermal formulations.
Highlights
With respect to the samples provided by Corporación Hijos de la Rivera S.L. (Spain), they still retained a considerable water content (75.3 g/100 g fw), similar to that reported in a previous analytical study (71.5 to 78.6 g/100 g fw) performed by Gullón et al [7], who investigated the average compositional values of nine apple pomace samples from different varieties
Since carbohydrates quantities detected among the samples under study were very alike, and those of sugars were not, it can be hypothesized that apple pomace from cider production with Belgian cultivars may have a higher percentage of total of fiber
It was verified that the chosen solvent has a considerable effect with different outcomes among thermally dried or freeze-dried samples; in the case of Spanish samples, methanol:water (375 mg/100 g dw) and ethanol (301 mg/100 g dw) led to the highest yields, while the corresponding result was obtained with water (132 mg/100 g dw) and the water:ethanol mixture (71 mg/100 g dw) in the case of Belgian samples
Summary
The growing consumer consciousness about health complications associated with the use of conventional cosmetics, together with the need for a better understanding of the skin’s physiology, has sponsored the demand for innovative cosmetic products based on natural substances [1]. Since ancient times, the plant kingdom has been the basis of natural constituents with potential effects on protection, healing, and upkeep of the beauty of human skin through the use of herbal and seed extracts or aromatized waters [2]. The upward association between beauty, health, and well-being has boosted the search for so-called “natural cosmetics”, the market for which, still relatively small, is increasing much faster than the cosmetics industry in general [2,3,4]
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