Valorization of cacao pod husk through supercritical fluid extraction of phenolic compounds

Cacao pod husk (CPH) is the main co-product of the chocolate industry. In the present work; a Box-Behnken design was employed to optimize the SC-CO₂ for the development of suitable and green process focused on obtaining an extract enriched in phenolic compounds from this by-product, considering temperature, pressure and co-solvent (ethanol) as factors. The response variables selected were yield, total phenolics and total antioxidant capacity (ABTS assay). Extraction pressure and ethanol percentage were the main factors influencing the yield of the target compounds. The extract obtained at the optimum conditions (60 °C, 299 bar and 13.7% of ethanol) presented 0.52% of yield, 12.97 mg GAE/g extract and, 0.213 mmol TE/g extract which were well adjusted to the ones predicted. The findings of this study showed that supercritical fluid extraction could be used as a technique to obtain an extract enriched in phenolic compounds from CPH.