Evaluación de la extracción de principios activos mediante hidrocavitación a partir de agraz (Vaccinium meridionale Swartz).

Abstract

Currently, agraz has great potential in the medical, pharmaceutical and food industries. The problem is that the main use given to this product is for direct consumption and not for the use of its active principles as an antioxidant source in pharmaceutical products. The agraz has a potential industrial due to its high content of anthocyanins which have antioxidant properties beneficial to health. In the present work, the obtaining of agraz extracts was evaluated using hydrocavitation as an extraction method at pilot scale. Agraz was collected and reduced their size with a miller. The particles obtained were classified with a Tyler series sieve (< 1mm). The crushed fruit had a moisture percentage of 9.3% ± 0.8. In the hydrocavitator process, were evaluated four solid:solvent ratios (1:6, 1:9, 1:12 y 1:15) considering that the amount of solvent was always the same 7000 ml (ethanol 99.5% PanReac), taking five samples of each ratio at different times (3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 min). A laboratory scale test was carried out to compare them with the tests performed in the hydrocavitator, for which a sample was extracted with the Soxhlet equipment at a ratio of 1:6. In order to characterize the extracts obtained, the concentration of anthocyanins, as the main antioxidant metabolite, was identified by means of absorbance in a spectrophotometer. The highest anthocyanin content (135.5 mg/L of Cyanidin-3-glucoside) was found in the ratio (1:6) at 3 min of processing. The control assay showed a yield of 11.49 mg/L Cyanidin-3-glucoside. These results showed that the extraction process by hydrocavitation could be a faster and more efficient process to extract anthocyanins.