Development of extraction, quantification, and purification processes of metabolites from Capsicum species guided by principles of green chemistry and sustainable engineering

• Grant number: 24/06494-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: February 28, 2029
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Organic Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Cristiano Soleo de Funari
• Grantee: Leonardo de Oliveira Sartori
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agronômicas (FCA). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Peppers are fruits of species of the genus Capsicum, widely used in food, especially for their spiciness. Chemical studies have been conducted almost exclusively on four species of the genus, while Brazil alone harbors at least twenty of them, as well as typical varieties with great potential for innovation. In addition to capsaicinoids, carotenoids, phenolics, and other metabolites have been reported in the few species investigated, in studies that did not take sustainability parameters into account. This project aims to establish innovative processes for the extraction, quantification, and purification of Capsicum spp. metabolites, globally optimized and aligned with the most up-to-date concepts of sustainability (a clear gap in the chemistry of natural products), as well as to expand the knowledge about the chemistry of species of the genus and their potential biological activities, including typical varieties from Brazil, developed by EMBRAPA. The project has three main stages: (i) development of an analytical procedure that sets a new state-of-the-art standard for metabolomic studies of species and varieties of the genus Capsicum; (ii) tentative identification of as many metabolites as possible; (iii) optimization of green processes for the extraction and purification of prioritized metabolites; (iv) testing the biological activities of extracts, fractions, and purified metabolites. Solvents will be pre-selected from industry solvent selection guides, screened in silico for each target, and the best-ranked ones will be tested experimentally; extraction techniques available at an industrial scale will be prioritized; procedures will be optimized using the Design of Experiments (DoE) approach. The new processes will be compared to the current state-of-the-art using multi-parameter metrics.