Application of experimental designs for evaluate the total phenolics content and antioxidant activity of cashew apple bagasse

Cashew apple bagasse is a waste from production process of the cashew apple juice and generated in large quantities by the pulps juices industry. This is the first time in which such conciliation between cashew apple bagasse and antioxidant total phenolics content was done. Thus, such study may provide alternatives for the use of this biomass. The process conditions for extraction of total phenolics were defined using a centroid-simplex mixture design to find the optimal concentrations of the solvents. Next a three-levels factorial experimental design was applied to evaluate the influence of the variables time and extraction temperature. The best combinations of the variables for increasing the yield of total phenolics content and antioxidant activity was obtained with 60% water, 30% acetone and 10% ethanol for 2 h, at 35ºC. The yield maximum of total phenolics content found were 343.34±34.76 mg GAE 100 g-1. The antioxidant capacities determined by the DPPH and ABTS methods were 5.170.91±305 g g-1 of DPPH and 13.6±1.8 μM Trolox g-1 respectively. The study revealed that cashew apple bagasse is a rich source of antioxidant and can be considered an important alternative biomass natural and cheap for application in bioprocesses.

Keywords: cashew apple, total phenolics, antioxidant activity, biomass, experimental designs.