ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Chem.

Sec. Green and Sustainable Chemistry

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fchem.2025.1597833

This article is part of the Research TopicNew Trends in Green Chemistry: Sustainable and Alternative Strategies for the Extractions of High Value Compounds from Agri-Food Matrices and ResiduesView all 3 articles

Vineyard pruning-wood waste valorisation: sustainable extraction of bioactive compounds

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Department of Drug Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
  • 2Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Lombardy, Italy
  • 3National Biodiversity Future Center, Palermo, Italy, Palermo, Italy
  • 4DISAFA, Dipartimento Scienze Agrarie, Forestali, Alimentari, Università di Torino, Grugliasco (TO), Italy, Torino, Italy
  • 5Department of Chemistry, University of Pavia, Pavia, Lombardy, Italy
  • 6National Biodiversity Future Center, Palermo, Sicily, Italy
  • 7University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

The annual production of waste is expected to increase over the next forty years, representing one of the main challenges associated with the global rise in population. Consequently, the transition towards more sustainable development and circular economy constitutes one of the most pressing challenges in the coming decades. Vineyard management generates several thousand tons of waste each year, including wood from pruning. This waste material is particularly rich in secondary metabolites, such as (E)-resveratrol and (E)-ε-viniferin. Accordingly, it represents a valuable source of biologically active phytochemicals with potential industrial outcomes. The present study aimed to exploit grapevine pruning residues as a source of such secondary metabolites through the set-up of a low environmental impact procedure which involves first a microwave-assisted solvent extraction (MASE, 100% EtOH, 1 cycle of 5 minutes, 80°C) followed by a protocol suitable for the isolation of (E)-resveratrol and (E)-ε-viniferin from the MASE extract. Different purification techniques, such as liquid/liquid extraction and chromatography, alone or in combinations, were exploited. Best results were achieved with medium pressure automated chromatography, eluting with n-hexane and ethyl acetate in gradient condition, with or without preliminary liquid/liquid (water/ethyl acetate) extraction. Applying the optimize procedure (E)-resveratrol (0.9 mg/g dry matrix weight) and (E)-ε-viniferin (1.1 mg/g dry matrix weight) were successfully isolated with high purity Moreover, a UHPLC-UV/DAD method suitable for the quantification of (E)-resveratrol and (E)-ε-viniferin was developed to support all the procedures. Keeping in mind eco-sustainable criteria, the greenness of the UHPLC method was evaluated through the open source calculator AGREE: analytical GREennEss Calculator 0.5 beta, while the environmental impact of the whole procedure proposed for the extraction and the isolation of the secondary metabolites was determined using the environmental impact factor (EF), obtaining satisfactory results.

Keywords: (E)-Resveratrol, (E)-ε-viniferin enantiomers, UHPLC-UV/DAD analysis, Microwave-assisted solvent extraction (MASE), Secondary metabolites isolation, environmental impact factor (EF), AGREE: analytical GREennEss Calculator

Received: 21 Mar 2025; Accepted: 16 May 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Tumminelli, Cavalloro, Ingrà, Ferrandino, Porta, Marrubini, Martino, Rossi and Collina. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Daniela Rossi, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

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