Sequential ultrasound assisted deep eutectic solvent-based protein extraction from Sacha inchi meal biomass: towards circular bioeconomy.

The need for high-quality dietary proteins has risen over the years with improvements in the quality of life. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been regarded as potential green alternatives to conventional organic solvents for protein extraction from press cake biomass, meeting the needs of sustainable development goals. Sacha inchi seed meal (SIM) is generated as a by-product of the seed oil extraction industries containing high protein content. The current study presents a novel ultrasound assisted DES method for the extraction of SIM protein in a sequential manner. Four different DESs were screened, out of which choline chloride (ChCl)/glycerol (1:2) gave promising results in protein recovery and was further selected. The sequential ultrasound-ChCl/glycerol could effectively extract high total crude protein content (77.43%) from SIM biomass compared to alone ultrasound (29.21%) or ChCl/glycerol (58.32%) treatment strategies. The SIM protein extracted from ultrasound-ChCl/glycerol exhibited high solubility (94.39%) at alkaline pH and highest in vitro digestibility (71.16%) by digestive enzymes (pepsin and trypsin). The protein characterization by SDS-PAGE and FTIR elucidated the structural properties and presence of different functional groups of SIM protein. Overall, the sequential ultrasound-ChCl/glycerol revealed its significant potential for one-step biorefining of the waste Sacha inchi meal biomass for circular bioeconomy.