Anthocyanin extraction from Jabuticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora) skins by different techniques: economic evaluation

Jabuticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora) is grape-like in appearance and texture, although its skin is thicker and tougher. This Brazilian fruit has a dark purple to almost black skin color due to a high content of anthocyanins that cover a white gelatinous flesh inside. Jabuticaba is well known for its antioxidant properties due to the presence of anthocyanins and other phenolic compounds. Anthocyanins pigments act as strong antioxidants and are antiinflammatory, with antimutagenic and cancer chemopreventive activities. Several technologies for the extraction of anthocyanin pigments from various plants sources have been proposed in literature. On the other hand, there is a lack of information about the operational costs of this extraction process at industrial scale. In this work different techniques were evaluated in terms of economical feasibility for extraction of anthocyanins from skins of jabuticaba. Ultrasound assisted (UAE), agitated bed (ABE), soxhlet and pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) methods were economically compared. Ethanol was used as extraction solvent for all extraction techniques. The simulation was conducted using the software SuperPro designer 6.0®. According to the results, PLE resulted in higher extraction efficiency followed by UAE, soxhlet and ABE. The COM of the process was obtained in terms of global yield. PLE process was the most economically viable method to obtain extracts rich in anthocyanins.