Document Type

Article

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

1.6 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, 3. MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES

Abstract

Rapeseed is a globally valuable crop, and its production has steadily grown over the past 20 yr. Rapeseed is cultivated in China, India, Canada and Europe; however, in terms of rapeseed production, Europe is the largest producer (Carre, 2014). In the year 2013/2014, the European Union (EU) produced 9.93 million t of rapeseed oil, while China produced 6.58 million t (List, 2015). A by-product of the rapeseed oil industry, rapeseed meal contains bioactive constituents, such as the phenolics sinapinic acid (SA) and protocatechuic acid (PCA), which have potential uses as functional food ingredients and for use in cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications. Improving and developing methods to isolate phenolic compounds from rapeseed meal could enhance the economic value of this resource. The isolation of phenolics from rapeseed meal encompasses the idea of a “circular economy”, whereby resources that would otherwise be considered waste are recycled into products (Velis, 2015). Traditional methods of isolating phenolics from rapeseed meal include organic solvent and enzymatic extraction; however, this can require large volumes of solvent, while the associated toxicity of certain organic solvents such as methanol makes them unsuitable for use in final food applications. This has encouraged the development of novel isolation methods such as ultrasound-assisted (UAE), microwave-assisted (MAE), high-voltage electrical discharge (HVED) and pulsed electric field (PEF) extraction processes (Teh and Birch, 2014; Barba et al., 2015; Teh et al., 2015). In the first part of this review, existing and novel methods of isolating these phenolic compounds from rapeseed meal are examined. The second part of the review focusses on the diverse bioactive properties of these phenolics, which could make them potentially useful in improving human health.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1515/ijafr-2017-0012

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