Recovery of Valuable Components from Food Wastes by Microwave Assisted Extraction

Today, insufficiency of natural resources, rapidly growing world population, climate change, food losses and food waste cause significant risk for food safety. In food industries, high amounts of solid and liquid wastes are released at various stages of production. The majority of them are organic wastes left from the raw material processed. Food waste, food and nutrition safety and food quality affect the sustainability and economic development of food systems and have negative impacts on natural resources and environmental protection. In addition, these food wastes can be converted into useful products which have market value, such as polyphenols, dietary fiber and photochemistry etc. Therefore, studies on the assessment of these wastes are becoming increasingly important and quick and effective new applications are needed. Traditional extraction methods usually take a long time and require large amounts of solvent. Microwave assisted solvent extraction (MASE) is one of the modern methods which have been used more commonly in recent years, with short extraction time, less solvent usage and lower energy requirements, higher heating rates, higher extraction efficiency, higher selectivity and better quality target products. Microwave assisted solvent extraction is one of the modern methods with its increasing use in recent years. In this study, microwave extraction has been studied in general and the studies on the extraction of valuable components by microwave extraction technique from food wastes were compiled. Keywords: Food waste, Microwave assisted extraction DOI: 10.7176/JSTR/6-09-05