Multivalorization of apple pomace towards materials and chemicals. Waste to wealth

The work presented here uses apple pomace (AP), an industrial waste from apple juice and cider production as a renewable raw material (RRM), to obtain materials that can be utilized as biocompatible scaffolds for osteoblasts and chondrocytes, employed in tissue engineering, valuable extracts that can be used as nutraceuticals and pectin. All of these have much higher values than the original raw material, pectin can be priced up to 1 euroig, chlorogenic acid is ca. 120 euros/g, caffeic acid 3-5 eurosig and especially the scaffolds that are usually made by synthetic methods using non-renewable raw materials with high fabrication costs and sold at prices higher than 100 eurosig, while the residues used here have prices lower than 100 euros per ton. Thus, there are clear environmental and financial incentives in transforming this waste material into valuable substances and materials. As indicated in the Graphical Abstract, the procedure followed consists in sequential extractions of antioxidants, pectin and finally the preparation of a biocompatible material, giving priority to the latter due to its importance as a renewable scaffold for tissue engineering. From a literature search, to date, although separate ways of valorization have been applied to this kind of waste, the sequential multi valorization adopted here, has not been previously attempted. Furthermore, biocompatible scaffolds from AP have not been described. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.