Minutes of the meeting held in Milan, March 20^th 1999

Subject: Definition of the final technological processes for the preparation of OMWW preparations.

The meeting was held in Milan, at the Institute of Pharmacological Sciences

Status of the project

The activity of Partner 5 (University of Bologna) consisted in the setting up of methods for the recovery of OMWW phenols, based on the use of resins for the adsorption of phenols directly from the waste waters. Dr. Setti (partner 5) began his presentation of the work by illustrating the processes underlying the adsorption/desorption of the resins employed to obtain simple phenols from the waste waters. Dr. Setti also suggested that the industrial application of each method should be discussed before this could be fully elucidated. Due to co-adsorption phenomena, in fact, a low yield of simple phenols from resins was observed. Dr. Setti suggested the use of enzymes (pectinolytic, proteolytic etc.) to pretreat the waste waters in order to remove macromolecules and minimize co-adsorption. Prof. Pifferi (Partner 5) also suggested the use of calcium acetate, which they found to be very effective in precipitating macromolecules. From 1 lt of waste waters, Prof. Pifferi stated, they have been able to recover ~30 mg of ortho-diphenols.

Dr. Molinacci (Partner 4) states that, from these analyses, carried out on samples obtained from Partner 5, hydroxytyrosol did not appear to be de-adsorbed from the resins.

A debate took place on the issue of using or not using resins. Everybody agreed on the need to use a flocculant such as calcium acetate to precipitate macromolecules. Such compound has been successfully employed by Partner 5, who provided Partner 1 with two extracts (named A and B) that proved very active as antioxidants. In that case, the recovery was 1.5 mg/lt of total phenols, resulting in 15 mg/lt of hydroxytyrosol. Prof. Galli asked to accellerate the process of conversion of this procedure, successfully applied at the lab-scale level, to a pilot plant in order to produce several grams of such extract to be employed in animal experiments.

The following flowchart was approved and Partners 5 and 6 were asked to quickly proceed with this outline:

Waste waters à add 3% resins à deadsorb with acid ethanol à analyze and concentrate (by evaporation).

Concomitantly, the use of a flocculant will be tested and a cost-effectiveness analysis will be performed. Prof. Bordado (Partner 6) suggested the use of polyacrilamide as flocculant to precipitate all the molecules. This method will be tested on a small sample.

All participants agreed that Partners 5 and 6 will immediately start the procedures to obtain a substantial amount of waste water extract by the procedure described above and that this extract will be forwarded to Partner 1 and 2 for use in in vivo experiments.

Partners 5 and 6 agreed to prepare at least 2 gr of the requested phenolics preparation by mid-April.

Participants:

Partner 1 – University of Milan
Partner 4 – University of Florence
Partner 5 – University of Bologna
Partner 6 – ACH - Consultores do Ambiente
Partner 8 – Tecnoalimenti