CHAPTER 17: Intensification of Functional Foods Production
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Published:18 Jun 2018
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Special Collection: 2018 ebook collectionSeries: Green Chemistry Series
H. Vaghari, H. Jafarizadeh-Malmiri, N. Harcourt, Z. Sarabadani, N. Anarjan, and A. Berenjian, in Intensification of Biobased Processes, ed. A. Górak and A. Stankiewicz, The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2018, pp. 365-380.
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There is a need to produce more food with high health benefits and less environmental impact, known as sustainable intensification. Functional foods have beneficial effects on one or more functions of the human organism and are essential for the body to decrease the risk of developing disease. Among functional foods, some of them – such as essential oils and carotenoids – are hydrophobic components, and these have lower water solubility and, consequently, low bioavailability. Nanodispersions are very interesting due to their capability to extensively increase the solubility of lipophilic bioactive compounds, that is, neither soluble in water nor oil, and subsequently increase their bioavailability and stability. Extraction of lipophilic functional foods and production of their nanodispersions use large amounts of organic solvents and, hence, require a large amount of energy to remove the solvents from the final products. This chapter presents an overview on process intensification technologies used in functional foods for increasing the eco-efficiency of the process with the benefits of lower capital costs, substantial energy saving and decreased utilization of solvents. This work also focuses on experimental modelling related to process intensification of the preparation of functional nanosized lycopene from tomato processing wastes.