Abstract
The pits of Japanese apricot, Prunus mume Sieb. et Zucc., which are composed of stones, husks, kernels, and seeds, are unused by-products of the processing industry in Japan. The processing of Japanese apricot fruits generates huge amounts of waste pits, which are disposed of in landfills or, to a lesser extent, burned to form charcoal. Mume stones mainly consist of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Herein, we attempted to solubilize the wood-like carapace (stone) encasing the pit by subcritical fluid extraction with the aim of extracting useful chemicals. The characteristics of the main phenolic constituents were elucidated by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analyses. The degrees of solubility for various treatments (190 °C; 3 h) were determined as follows: subcritical water (54.9%), subcritical 50% methanol (65.5%), subcritical 90% methanol (37.6%), subcritical methanol (23.6%), and subcritical isopropyl alcohol (14.4%). Syringaldehyde, sinapyl alcohol, coniferyl alcohol methyl ether, sinapyl alcohol methyl ether, 5-(hydroxymethyl)-2-furfural, and furfural were present in the subcritical 90% methanol extract. Coniferyl and sinapyl alcohols (monolignols) are source materials for the biosynthesis of lignin, and syringaldehyde occur in trace amounts in wood. Our current findings provide a solubilization method that allows the main phenolic constituents of the pits to be extracted under mild conditions. This technique for obtaining subcritical extracts shows great potential for further applications.
Highlights
Fruits and their industries generate large quantities of waste and by-products, and the management of waste and by-products is one of the major environmental issues [1,2,3,4]
It was suggested that BtBhioieommsoeoleleceucxultelsresa22c002t2i0o0,n1100,p,xrxocedures were not effective to solubilize the woody parts of the mume stone5s5.ooff1133
We found that syringaldehyde, sinapyl alcohol, coniferyl alcohol methyl ether, sinapyl alcohol methyl ether, 5-(hydroxymethyl)-2-furfural, and furfural were present in the subcritical 90% methanol extract of mume stones
Summary
Fruits and their industries generate large quantities of waste and by-products, and the management of waste and by-products is one of the major environmental issues [1,2,3,4]. Et Zucc., belongs to the Rosaceae family and is one of the most popular fruit trees in Japan. Most harvested mume fruit is processed into umeboshi (pickled mume fruit), which is very popular in Japan. During the umeboshi production process, any misshapen umeboshi are processed into mume paste, affording the pit as a by-product. This industry has led to the production of vast amounts of pit waste
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