Team Eco-lution, Leandro Gonçalves, Marta Rocha, Pedro Moleiro and Tânia Ribas, attend the University of Aveiro in Portugal.
Portugal produced around 1,3 M tons/year of fresh fruit in 2021. During the fruit processing, a large amount of organic waste is generated, namely kernels and peels, that can be promising raw materials for new bioprocesses.
The peach kernel has great potential due to its high availability as a by-product of the fruit processing industries and to its lipidic fraction, rich in oleic and linoleic acids. The last can be the object of microbial conversion into conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a high value-added product by its anticarcinogenic properties and applications as a growth factor and human body fat mass decreasing supplement.
In this project, we propose supercritical CO2 extraction of the linoleic acid (LA) fraction from the peach kernel, for producing CLA through controlled Lactobacillus plantarum microbial bioprocess. Thereby, we envisage the production of value-added CLA through kernel peach waste contributing to a Cradle-to-Cradle approach, the basis of the circular economy.
