Dr. Carl Safi

Wageningen University & Research | WUR · Wageningen Food & Biobased Research

“Intensification of Vaporization by Decompression to the Vacuum” (IVDV) has initially emerged as a technology primarily employed for expanding and enhancing the texture of biological products. However, its recent applications have showcased significant promise in the realm of extracting bioactive molecules from various plant materials. In this cont...

Extraction of polyphenols from Centranthus longiflorus stems was conducted using ultrasound and infrared Ired-Irrad® techniques, and compared to the conventional water bath method. Response surface methodology was used to analyse the effect of time, temperature, and ethanol percentage, as well as to optimize the three extraction methods. The highes...

Grape seeds are the wineries’ main by-products, and their disposal causes ecological and environmental problems. In this study seeds from the pomace waste of autochthonous grape varieties from Lebanon, Obeidi (white variety) and Asswad Karech (red variety) were used for a multi-step biomass fractionation. For the first step, a lipid extraction was...

(1) Background: Eryngium creticum is a plant medicinally valued, and used in pharmacopeia to treat various diseases. No previous studies have been reported on E. creticum leaf extracts using an IR-assisted technique; thus, this study aimed to intensify polyphenol extraction using Ired-Irrad®, comparing it to the conventional water bath (WB) method....

A process to extract proteins from palm kernel meal was investigated. A sequence of unit operations was implemented and optimized in order to ensure an optimal process efficacy. It has been determined that among all the enzymes that were tested, Alcalase had the highest capacity to hydrolyse proteins and solubilize them in solution, especially afte...

Microalgae technology has been extensively studied during the last two decades. Thousands of species were isolated, and few are currently used in the market for multiple purposes. The current comprehensive review focuses on a promising species named Neochloris oleoabundans. It encompasses a historical overview of the species followed by a detailed...

Rosmarinus officinalis is an evergreen aromatic plant with important commercial interest as it contains numerous essential oils (composed of terpenoid compounds) and phenolic constituents (natural antioxidant compounds). This work aims at evaluating the concomitant effects of different inorganic and organic fertilization treatments and the subseque...

The impact of four different growth conditions on the cell disruption efficiency of Neochloris oleoabundans was investigated. A mechanical and biological cell disruption methods were evaluated separately and combined. It has been established that microalgae grown in marine water under nitrogen deprivation were the most resistant against cell disrup...

Microalgae are increasingly considered as sources of renewable feedstocks for industrial production, and microalgae production now focuses on the multi- product microalgal biorefinery. However, such a biorefinery presents several bottlenecks that are mainly associated with downstream processes. This reduced downstream efficiency results from unsolv...

Pressurized liquid extraction using green solvents (ethanol and water) was applied to extract photosynthetic pigments from the microalgae Chlamydomonas sp. An experimental design is employed to determine the effect of the extraction conditions on the extraction yield and the antioxidant capacity of the different extracts determined using 1,1-diphen...

A mild fractionation process to extract functional biomolecules from green microalgae was implemented. The process includes bead milling, centrifugation and filtration with several membrane cut-offs. For each fraction, the corresponding composition was measured and the surface activity and gelation behavior were determined. A maximum protein yield...

The use of a single controlled bead milling step of the microalga Tetraselmis suecica resulted in a soluble fraction, rich in functional proteins. This was achieved by fine-tuning the processing time, thereby exploiting the difference in rates of protein and carbohydrate release during milling. Soluble proteins were extracted under mild conditions...

Several cell disruption methods were tested on Nannochloropsis gaditana, to evaluate their efficiency in terms of cell disintegration, energy input and release of soluble proteins. High-pressure homogenization (HPH) and bead milling were the most efficient with > 95% cell disintegration, ± 50% (w/w) release of total proteins and low energy input (<...

The disintegration of three industry relevant algae (Chlorella vulgaris, Neochloris oleoabundans and Tetraselmis suecica) was studied in a lab scale bead mill at different bead sizes (0.3–1 mm). Cell disintegration, proteins and carbohydrates released into the water phase followed a first order kinetics. The process is selective towards proteins ov...

A mild biorefinery process was investigated on the microalga Nannochloropsis gaditana, to obtain an enriched fraction of water soluble proteins free from chlorophyll. After harvesting, a 100 g.L⁻¹ solution of cells was first subjected to cell disruption by either high-pressure homogenization (HPH) or enzymatic treatment (ENZ). HPH resulted in a lar...

A two-stage ultrafiltration process was applied to the aqueous phase of Tetraselmis suecica after breaking its cell wall by high-pressure homogenization. Microscopic observation revealed that the cells were completely disrupted from 600 bar and cell fragmentation of the cells was also noticeable after 800 bar. In addition, the highest concentration...

The influence of bead milling on the extraction of lipids and pigments by supercritical carbon dioxide was investigated in this study. Different operating parameters for the 3-h process were first tested on raw Chlorella vulgaris; 600 bar was the optimum pressure at 60 °C with a carbon dioxide flow rate of 30 g min−1. Under these operating conditio...

The microalgal structure has been investigated to evaluate the release of proteins in aqueous media from five microalgae after conducting different cell disruption techniques: manual grinding, ultrasonication, alkaline treatment, and high-pressure treatment. After conducting cell disruption, the protein concentration in water was determined for all...

The amino acid profile of the red microalga Porphyridium cruentum and its protein extract have been determined in order to assess the nutritional quality of this biomass for human consumption. Total protein determined by elemental analysis represented 56 % of its dry weight. Hydro-soluble proteins extracted at pH 12 and 40 °C were analysed by the L...

Additional evidence about the influence of the cell wall physical and chemical characteristics on protein extractability was determined by calculating the conversion factors of five different microalgae known to have different cell wall composition, and their protein extracts. The conversion factors obtained for crude rigid cell walled Chlorella vu...