Combined hydrothermal pre-treatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of corn fibre: Production of ferulic acid extracts and assessment of their antioxidant and antiproliferative properties

Ferulic acid may be used as a nutraceutical ingredient or substrate to produce bio-vanillin. There is an increasing market demand for ferulic obtained from natural sources such low-cost agro-industrial by-products, due its potential applications and This work aims study recovery corn fibre (one of the most abundant acid), involving integrated process hydrothermal pre-treatment followed by enzymatic hydrolysis. The objective primarily extracts with maximum yield, but it also assess their antioxidant antiproliferative properties cytotoxicity. Different commercial enzyme preparations were tested release fibre. best results Ultraflo ®XL in concentration 2 % (wenzyme preparation/w dry fibre) at pH 5 55 °C, presenting yield esterified 7.83 ± 1.35 (wrecovered acid/wtotal which corresponds 0.13 0.02 (wferulic acid/w fibre). When using temperature 140 °C 40 min, prior use same hydrolysis procedure, increased 28.94 2.40 (w recovered acid/ wtotal 4.9 0.3 acid/wdry this leads not only highest acid, lowest furfural hydroxymethylfurfural, without formation formic levulinic (not detected). All pre-treatments led improved quality extract terms bioactivity.