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IFCE foresees the possibility of using banana peel in the pharmaceutical and food industry and most importantly: replacing some petroleum derivatives
Researchers from the IFCE, Federal Institute of Ceará, precisely in the campus, from Iguatu in Ceará, studied the reuse of some substances from banana peels. One of the objectives is to use the banana peel in spaces in the food industry, as part of the packaging composition or as a great substitute for petroleum products in general.
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With the study of the banana peel by the IFCE, a substance called lignin was found, which is normally discarded from the fruit. According to the researchers from Ceará, the substance from the banana peel could be applied in the pharmaceutical, food and product sectors, which currently use petroleum derivatives to manufacture fertilizers, pesticides, additives for concrete and polymers.
According to the IFCE professor, Francisco Avelino, the process used in the Ceará study was organosolve, in the banana peel, which allows the division of plant biomass into cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose with an enormous degree of purity.
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The production of the component that promises to replace oil derivatives in Ceará may start soon
According to Avelino, although the banana peel was used as a basis in the study, lignin can be found in other fruits and vegetables, however, in Iguatu, banana production and planting is more predominant, favoring its use in search.
“Throughout Iguatu, especially in the Center-South region, there will always be large producers of the future oil substitute. In this case, it is domestic waste, since the population eats the fruit and ends up discarding the peel, as well as industrial waste, since bananas are predominant in the manufacture of sweets and the use of the peels is discarded or reused in other ways. industries such as the production of fuel for ovens, it is also a poor application and wastes a lot of the chemical production of banana peel that could be used to generate energy”, highlighted the specialist.
Research on IFCE and the oil industry
According to Francisco Avelino, the research for the future substitute for oil began in August 2019 and was a project started with a student of the degree course in Chemistry, at the IFCE on Campus Iguatu, and then needed to be replaced. Due to the arrival of the pandemic, the project was delayed and took a little over a year to develop.
The research was funded by the Cearense Foundation for Scientific and Technological Development Support (FUNCAP), and, in addition to that, support came from the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) and also from Embrapa Agroindústria Tropical.
