Wild apple fruit dust, discarded as by-product from filter tea factory, represents under-utilized raw material, which contains high amount of bioactive compounds. The aim of present work was utilization of wild apple fruit dust by application of microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) process for recovery of polyphenolic antioxidants. MAE was used for isolation of polyphenolic fraction from this kind of raw material. Box-Behnken experimental design at three levels and three variables was used for process optimization. The influence of extraction time (15-35 min), ethanol concentration (40-80%), and irradiation power (400-800 W) on total extraction yield, total phenols content, total flavonoids content, and antioxidant activity parameters, was evaluated. Experimental results were fitted to a second-order polynomial model and adequacy of the applied models was evaluated by analysis of variance. Results showed that wild apple fruit dust could be used as good source for recovery of polyphenols and preparation of liquid extracts with increased antioxidant activity. Practical ApplicationsNowadays, there is growing interest for developing economically feasible and environmentally friendly extraction processes for isolation of bioactive compounds from natural resources. At the same time, sustainable and relatively cheap raw material should be utilized in the production. This research provides information about optimization of novel extraction technique (microwave-assisted extraction), which could be successfully used for polyphenols extraction due to increased yield of target compounds and improved quality of the liquid extracts in terms of antioxidant activity. Therefore, wild apple by-products from filter-tea factory, could be used as alternative raw material for production of polyphenols-rich liquid extracts.
