A biorefinery for efficient processing and utilization of spent pulp of Colombian Andes Berry (Rubus glaucus Benth.): Experimental, techno-economic and environmental assessment
Introduction
The utilization and processing chain of blackberry fruit or Andes Berry (Rubus glaucus Benth.) in Colombia is well established. The annual production of this fruit in 2013 amounted to 105,285 tons that were produced on more than 10,743 ha, throughout the national territory (Ceron et al., 2012). A part of the crop is exported to other countries where it is consumed after processing in the relevant industries (Ruiz et al., 2009).
Blackberry is commonly processed into concentrates, jams and juices (Ceron et al., 2012) and significant amounts of spent blackberry pulp (SBP) are generated as the principal residue. It has been established (Medina et al., 2004) that about 20% of the fruit mass that is processed into juice remains as process residues (waste biomass).
There is a need to enhance the efficiency with which the fruit is utilized and the latter can be accomplished by developing new technological and marketing approaches to allow preparing and commercializing new conventional food products as well as new and advanced value-added products. Information about the potential utilization of pulp and other fruit-derived biomass that are generated during its processing is limited.
The blackberry fruit contains different biologically-active compounds that are desired in pharmaceutical, food and chemical applications. Blackberry fruit contains phenolic compounds that exhibit antioxidative activity (Davila et al., 2015, Ceron et al., 2012). Blackberry fruit contains up to 600 mg ascorbic acid per 100 gr fruit (Patras et al., 2009) and six of the reported anthocyanins with relevance to cancer prevention can be found in this fruit (Davila et al., 2015). SBP contains valuable components such as lignocellulosic biomass (mainly cellulose and hemicellulose) that can be utilized in various applications (Machado et al., 2015). The extraction of anthocyanins from SBP presents yet another potential attractive opportunity when efficient utilization of SBP is considered.
The biorefinery concept integrates biomass conversion processes in a given scheme for producing different products such as biomolecules, biomaterials, bioenergy and biofuels (Moncada et al., 2013). In light of its content of potentially value-added compounds and fractions, SBP can be considered to be a promising raw material for processing according to the biorefinery concept.
Biorefineries for processing fruit-derived waste biomass have been proposed in different cases. For example, a biorefinery for processing citrus waste into biofuels and limonene as the principal products has been developed with a capacity of 100,000 tons/year and a production cost of 0.46 USD/L of ethanol (Lohrasbi et al., 2010). Citrus waste has been also utilized for producing limonene as intermediate valuable product that can be utilized in a biorefinery for preparing compounds such as p-cymene, hydrogen and pectin (Dávila et al., 2015). Fruit wastes have been suggested as raw material for extraction and production of value-added products such as biologically active nutraceuticals, pectin, phytochemicals as well as carbohydrates (xylose and glucose) that can then, be used for producing ethanol, butanol, hydrogen, bioplastics and more (Ravindran and Jaiswal, 2016). Biorefinery-based platforms for processing fruit-waste-derived value-added products, such as mixture of xylose and glucose from mango peel and other agro-industrial residues have been evaluated, these products can, in turn, be further utilized for preparing different value-added products and compounds (Davila et al., 2014).
The objective of the presented research was to investigate and develop the concept of a biorefinery for processing the Colombian SBP. An experimental characterization of SBP was carried out to determine the compositional potential for preparing phenolic compounds extracts, ethanol and xylitol, as model value-added products. Techno-economic and environmental assessments were carrying out for evaluating the total production cost and the potential environmental impact of the proposed biorefinery.
Section snippets
Materials and methods
The research methodology consisted of two parts; the first one describes the experimental procedures for chemical characterization consisting of holocellulose composition as well as phenolic compounds, anthocyanins and antioxidant capacity of the blackberry residues. The second part describes the process simulation using Aspen Plus V8.0 (AspenTech: Cambridge, MA) in order to establishing the mass and energy balances of the biorefinery. For simulation part, three steps were carried out as
Chemical characterization
Results of the composition analysis of SBP are presented in Table 2. These results indicated that the moisture content (5.12%) was similar to that reported by (Pasquel Reategui et al., 2014) for blackberry bagasse (5.24%). The holocellulose content of SBP was higher than 61%, thus suggesting its potential as raw material for producing reducing sugars (xylose and glucose) production. The holocellulose content in SBP was comparable to what has been reported for mango peel and other similar
Conclusions
SBP is a promising raw material with potential uses for producing valuable compounds in a biorefinery concept. The level of integration can reduce significantly the total production cost as well as the potential environmental impact of the birorefinery. Heat integration is the most important level of integration. Ethanol plant is the highest consumer of utilities in the biorefinery however; this product provides opportunities to meet some of the inputs demands in other plants of the
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