Lines of research

Recovering sub-products: Extraction / fermentation substrate

At CNTA we research alternative ways to value food sub-products, focusing mainly on two pathways:

• Extraction and purification of fractions of functional or technological interest in foods and/or nutraceutical products
• The use of sub-products as fermentation substrate.

The recovery processes that CNTA uses respond to the need to find a use for agrifood sector sub-products, giving them added value opposed to their current uses. Recovering these sub-products results in a new food product (plant silage for animal feed), an ingredient for cosmetics (polyphenols/antioxidants from fruit seeds), biomaterials (PHAs from potato skin), vegetable protein from plant material and/or aquatic biomass.

When developing these processes at CNTA we take into account their environmental impact on the entire life cycle, ensuring that the final outcome is favourable both in terms of using natural resources more effectively, and with the greenhouse gas emissions created.

Capabilities

• Experimental fermenters 2 to 7 L
• Pilot scale fermenter 50L
• Extraction systems (pilot plant for extracting supercritical fluids, extraction system in automated solid phase, accelerated solvent extraction (ASE))
• Fractioning/purification system using preparative chromatography and UV-VIS detection and refraction index detector (RID).
• BOD measurer, COD digester and TKN digester
• Bioshredder
• Electric sifter