Cleaner green protein production from vegetable byproducts: Energy recovery and water reuse strategies

Abstract

Vegetable protein is becoming a new safe resource in tomorrow's diet. Rubisco (Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase) represents the majority of soluble proteins in vegetable plants. The byproducts (green leaves) resulting from the transformation of these plants represent the most abundant protein resource. However, this resource remains the least exploited. This study presents an innovative process for Rubisco extraction from the green leaves of vegetable plants. This process is part of an eco-responsible circular economy that proposes an eco-design approach at the earliest stages (grassroots) of the Rubisco extraction process from vegetable wastes. In this study, the valorized and fractionated by-product consists of beet leaves.Furthermore, this work provides different methods for minimizing energy and water consumption during process design. The water and energy analysis at the first stages of the process design results in a rapid increase in environmental savings. The proposed optimization methods show potential savings of 78 %, 45 %, and 22 %, respectively, for heating, cooling, and water demand.