Sequential high pressure extractions applied to recover piceatannol and scirpusin B from passion fruit bagasse

• Passion fruit bagasse showed to be a rich source of piceatannol and scirpusin B.
• PLE was more efficient than conventional techniques to recover phenolics.
• A previous defatting step enhanced the recovery of target compounds by PLE.
• High correlations higher than 0.7 were found between phenolic content and antioxidant capacity.
• Passion fruit bagasse extract can be used for food and nutraceutical application.

Passion fruit seeds are currently discarded on the pulp processing but are known for their high piceatannol and scirpusin B contents. Using pressurized liquid extraction (PLE), these highly valuable phenolic compounds were efficiently extracted from defatted passion fruit bagasse (DPFB). PLE was performed using mixtures of ethanol and water (50 to 100% ethanol, w/w) as solvent, temperatures from 50 to 70 °C and pressure at 10 MPa. The extraction methods were compared in terms of the global yield, total phenolic content (TPC), piceatannol content and the antioxidant capacity of the extracts. The DPFB extracts were also compared with those from non-defatted passion fruit bagasse (nDPFB). Identification and quantification of piceatannol were performed using UHPLC–MS/MS. The results showed that high TPC and piceatannol content were achieved for the extracts obtained from DPFB through PLE at 70 °C and using 50 and 75% ethanol as the solvent. The best PLE conditions for TPC (70 °C, 75% ethanol) resulted in 55.237 mg GAE/g dried and defatted bagasse, whereas PLE at 70 °C and 50% ethanol achieved 18.590 mg of piceatannol/g dried and defatted bagasse, and such yields were significantly higher than those obtained using conventional extraction techniques. The antioxidant capacity assays showed high correlation with the TPC (r > 0.886) and piceatannol (r > 0.772). The passion fruit bagasse has therefore proved to be a rich source of piceatannol and PLE showed high efficiency to recover phenolic compounds from defatted passion fruit bagasse.

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