Tomato waste as a bioresource for lycopene extraction using emerging technologies

Background: Tomato is the second most important vegetable around the world. The processing of the fruit generates waste such as damaged tomatoes, pulp, skin, seeds, and tomato-derived products that contain valuable biomolecules with functional and technological applications. Tomato fruit extracts, mainly from waste, possess bioactive molecules, such as lycopene, with important biological applications in some industries.Scope and approach: The objective of this review is to analyze, discuss and synthesize the technologies that have been used for the extraction and recovery of the main lycopene present in tomato waste. The revised method-ologies expose valuable results in the number of carotenoids recovered through the application of solvents, microwave-assisted, ultrasound-assisted, enzymatic-assisted, extraction at high pressure, and supercritical fluids. However, the challenges continue concerning the quality of extracted compounds, economic accessibility, in-dustrial reproducibility, and environmental safety.Key findings and conclusions: The tomato waste contains important bioactive molecules, which are of interest in the food, pharmacological, biotechnological, and cosmetic industries. The information revised in this contri-bution pretends to support new research lines concerning the formulation of novel tomato waste bio-based functional foods. However, it is necessary to further analyze the new extraction and recovery conditions to keep the functional properties of this by-product.

Automated summary

Tomato waste contains important bioactive molecules that have potential applications in the food, pharmaceutical, biotechnological, and cosmetic industries. However, challenges remain in terms of the quality of extracted compounds, economic accessibility, industrial reproducibility, and environmental safety during the extraction and recovery process.