CLOROFILA EXTRAÍDA DE RESÍDUO INDUSTRIAL DA ERVA-MATE (Ilex paraguaiensis) UMA POSSIBILIDADE DE ECONOMIA CIRCULAR

Abstract

CHLOROPHYLL EXTRACTED FROM INDUSTRIAL WASTE FROM MATE-HERB (Ilex paraguaiensis) A POSSIBILITY OF CIRCULAR ECONOMY. Chlorophyll is the most abundant green pigment on the planet, it is unstable and decomposes naturally. Mate-herb is a traditional native plant in the southern region of South America, and its tea is part of the local culture and extractive agriculture. The mate-herb industry generates as a by-product a resinous material rich in chlorophyll whose use is proposed to be a natural pigment. The chlorophyll extraction method uses ethanol as a solvent; its structural modification leads to the obtainment of derivatives like pheophytin, Co-pheophytin, Ni-pheophytin, and Zn-pheophytin. The samples were analyzed by electronic (VISIBLE) and vibrational (FTIR) spectroscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF). Color analysis (CIE L*a*b*) was performed by decomposition in grayscale and the classification of the samples by the supervised machine learning (ML) algorithm Random Forest (RF), showing adequate accuracy for this type of matrix. The pigments were dispersed in synthetic enamel paint to study color stability when exposed to lighting. It was verified that Co-pheophytin and Ni-pheophytin are the most stable. The chlorophyll extracted from the resin presents an economically viable use for residues from mate-herb industries, whose family farmers benefit, with the bias of environmental and social sustainability, within the circular economy.