Cáscara de cacao fuente de polifenoles y fibra: simulación de una planta piloto para su extracción

Abstract

The municipality of San Vicente de Chucurí, department of Santander, produces approximately 11,8% of Colombia cocoa. In the production of cocoa beans, specifically during the beneficiation process, between 74-86% of waste are generated, which represents between 4715-5480 tons per year. This situation generates environmental and phytosanitary issues that should be addressed in the near future. Thus, in this paper it was evaluated the use of cocoa waste (husk) of CCN51 material for the extraction of polyphenols and total dietary fiber. Methodologically, two stages were developed. In the first stage, the cocoa husks were characterized by determining the total polyphenol content (Folin-Ciocalteu method) and total dietary fiber (enzyme-gravimetric method). With respect to second stage, it was performed the simulation (SuperPro Designer® software, academic version 9.0) of an extraction plant, using as input data of the simulator the values of obtained experimentally in the first stage. The simulation was developed on the basis of calculating the 32.6% of production in the municipality of San Vicente and the results obtained were as follows: the content of total polyphenols and total dietary for clone CCN- 51 were respectively 61 mgEGA/gdm y 56,80%. With respect to the simulation, a process diagram was proposed in which the stages of preparation, extraction and concentration of polyphenols and total dietary fiber were included. With this configuration, it was possible to obtain 8,6 kgEGA/h total polyphenols and 80,3 kg/h total dietary fiber present in the cocoa husk mass.