Turning tomato industrial waste into a resource of bioactive compounds

Abstract

Tomato waste (seeds and skin) can be used as secondary raw materials for obtaining liposoluble extracts. This paper presents the content of lycopene in CO2 extracts from tomato waste, obtained at different extraction regimes. Materials and methods. Tomato waste was collected from the industrial scale production of tomato juice at "Orhei-Vit" JSC, Republic of Moldova. With the purpose of being used as raw material, tomato waste was dried by the conductive method in Biosec Domus B5 dryer to a final moisture content of 6.50 %. In order to increase the contact area with the carbon dioxide, to achieve a more efficient extraction, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the tomato waste was milled. Based on the experimental data, there was determined the influence of the extraction parameters: temperature, pressure and time on lycopene concentration in the fat-soluble CO2 extracts from tomato waste.