Waste Valorization
We extract the valuable materials contained in industrial and agri-food waste and give them a new life.
Objective. New applications for winery waste
The DIGIWINE project, “Advanced Algorithms for Inventory Optimization and Supply Processes,” aims to study new applications for the main wastes generated in the winemaking process (pruning remains, stems, pomace, and lees). These by-products could be used as fertilizers, biostimulants, cosmetic ingredients, or biofuels, among other options.
This project has received public funding under the AEI 2022 call from the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Tourism, as part of the aid provided to support innovative business clusters to improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The participating partners are the Aragon Agricultural Machinery Cluster CAMPAG, SCSJB (San Juan Bautista Cooperative), the Catalonia Agricultural Machinery Cluster FEMAC, DEFEDER, and ATRIA.
ATRIA’s role in the DIGIWINE project has been the extraction of biostimulants from two types of residues: stems and pomace.
Solution. Extraction of biostimulants from grape stems and pomace
At ATRIA, we carried out the extraction of biostimulant compounds from two types of residues: stems and pomace.
In the extraction of biostimulant compounds, in this case, total polyphenols, we considered several determining factors:
- pH
- Extraction temperature
- Extraction time
- Extracting solvent
- Sample/solvent ratio
- Extraction method
Once we pre-treated the samples and carried out the extractions with different combinations of parameters, we studied the concentration of polyphenols and the antioxidant activity present in the extracts. We conducted a statistical study to determine the influence of these parameters on the concentrations of total polyphenols and antioxidant activity.
We selected two extracts: the one with the highest polyphenol concentration and the one with the highest antioxidant activity, and applied them to pepper plants under controlled conditions. We observed that the plants showed greater growth with the extracts that had higher concentrations of polyphenols.
