Innovative techniques for the extraction and quantification of bioactive compounds from food and agroindustrial by-products

The present PhD thesis is the result of my three-year research in the fields of green extraction and analytical chemistry, carried out mainly in the laboratory of Food and Dietary Products of the Department of Pharmacy (DIFAR) of Genoa University, and taking advantage of collaborations among other research groups of Genoa University, the Chemometric and Qualimetry Group of University of Burgos and the Green Extraction Team of Avignon University. The thread that runs through the entire thesis are innovative techniques both for the extraction and for the analysis of bioactive compounds, endowed with health-promoting activities or potentially harmful contaminants, occurring in different foods and agroindustrial by-products. Several green extraction techniques have been performed, with a view towards environmental sustainability as well as economic and safety considerations, in order to optimize the extraction of antioxidant compounds from Oryza sativa L. ‘Violet Nori’ and pomegranate by-products. ‘Violet Nori’ rice is particularly rich in anthocyanins. The effect of different cooking conditions on this polyphenolic content have been also investigated. Pomegranate peels and marcs can be valorised thanks to their high content in ellagic acid and ellagitannins. To improve ellagic acid bioavailability, its encapsulation in dendrimeric nanocarriers has been proposed too. With respect to the analytical methods, the innovative second order calibration of excitation-emission fluorescence matrices (EEMs) coupled with the chemometric tool PARAFAC has been applied also to another food matrix. Thanks to this technique, in fact, it has been possible to evaluate the content of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in a commercial smoked tuna sample.