Increased significance of food wastes: Selective recovery of added-value compounds

A single-step selective separation of two food additives was investigated using alcohol-salt aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS). The selective partitioning of two of the most used additives from a processed food waste material, vanillin and L-ascorbic acid, was successfully accomplished. The results obtained prove that alcohol-salt ATPS can be easily applied as cheaper processes for the selective recovery of valuable chemical products from food wastes and other sources. As a first approach, the phase diagrams of ATPS composed of different alcohol + inorganic salt + water were determined at 298 (+/- 1) K and atmospheric pressure. The influence of methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, and 2-propanol and K3PO4, K2HPO4 or KH2PO4/K2HPO4 in the design of the phase diagrams was addressed. After the evaluation of the phase diagrams behaviour, the influence of the phase forming constituents was assessed towards the partition coefficients and recovery percentages of vanillin and L-ascorbic acid among the coexisting phases. Both model systems and real processed food waste materials were employed. Using these ATPS as partitioning systems it is possible to recover and separate vanillin, which migrates for the alcohol-rich phase, from L-ascorbic acid, which preferentially partitions for the salt-rich phase. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.