Food Process Engineering

A Unit of Charles Viollette Research Institute

Learning by doing

ISA Lille's food process research takes place in our very own food pilot plant. Students get a hands-on look at food process engineering while learning important standards of research and development techniques.

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Plant extracts are widely used in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. By-products from agro-food industry contain still a broad range of bioactive compounds such as lipids, phytochemicals, pharmaceutics, flavors, fragrances and pigments which can be valorized by selective extraction. Extraction techniques have been widely investigated to obtain such valuable natural compounds from plants for commercialization. The last few years have seen an increasing demand for new extraction techniques with shortened extraction time, reduced organic solvent consumption, and increased pollution prevention.

Since 2013, ISA Lille’s Food Science department has undertaken research activities in engineering processes to provide solutions in regard to the valuation of food-industry by-products using new eco-processes for selective recovery of high valued molecules which can be used as natural additives in food industry, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Research Areas

Agro-Industrial by-products valorization
Green process development
Secondary metabolites extraction
Purification / Enrichment

Tools and Methodologies

Pressurized and supercritical fluid extractor (Separex)
Bioreactor (Applikon)
Peristaltic pumps (Masterflex L/S)
UV-Spectrophotometer (Varian)
HPLC-UV (Shimadzu)
GC-MS/MS (Varian)

Scientific and Professional Partnerships

National:

Mc Cain
Agro-Food and Biotechnology Research Institute “Charles Violette”

International:

KU Leuven University (Belgium)
TECSE Laboratory, UNCPBA (Argentina)
University of Exeter (United Kingdom)

Publications
- Vauchel P., Galván D’Alessandro L., Dhulster P., Nikov I. & Dimitrov K. (2014). Optimization and pilot scale demonstration of integrated extraction-adsorption eco-process for selective recovery of antioxydants from berries wastes. Separation and Purification Technology. Submitted article.
- Galván D’Alessandro L., Dimitrov K., Vauchel P. & Nikov I. (2013). Kinetics of ultrasound assisted extraction of anthocyanins from black chokeberry wastes. Chemical Engineering Research and Design. DOI: 10.1016/j.cherd.2013.11.020.
- Galván D’Alessandro L., Vauchel P., Przybylski R., Chataigné G. Nikov I. & Dimitrov K. (2013). Integrated process extraction-adsorption for selective recovery of antioxidant phenolics from Aronia melanocarpa berries. Separation and Purification Technology, 120:92-101.
- Galván D’Alessandro L., Kriaa K., Nikov I. & Dimitrov K. (2012). Ultrasound assisted extraction of polyphenols from black chokeberry. Separation and Purification Technology, 93:42-47.

Sylvie Chollet

Head of Research Unit

E-mail: sylvie.chollet@yncrea.fr