Researchers expect medical breakthrough using apple waste
The collaborative effort is headed by the Centre for Biomedical Technology at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (CTB-UPM). They worked alongside the Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales (ICMM-CSIC) and Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry (ICP-CSIC).
About 75 percent of an apple is convertible into juice. But the remaining portion, known as apple pomace, contains approximately 25 percent dried matter. This apple waste is generally used as animal feed or compost, but the researchers have discovered a breakthrough medical application.
After extracting different bioactive molecules for the apple pomace, such as antioxidants or pectin, the scientists prepared a biomaterial. This food-based material offers adequate porosity and texture so that it is usable in tissue engineering applications.
Today, there are products in the market with the same applications, however they have a high price, reaching over €100 per gram, while waste used in this work hardly reaches €100 per ton. For this reason, there are consistent incentives to convert this waste into final products of great added value.
source: drugtargetreview.com, all3dp.com
