Three synthetic routes to obtain acrolein are compared, from a life cycle point of view: one by propylene oxidation and two by the dehydration of glycerol, obtained as a co-product either in triglyceride transesterification to FAME or in hydrolysis to fatty acids.

By-products from the fruit supply chain, especially seeds/kernels, have shown great potential to be valorised, due to their high content of macronutrients, such as lipids, protein, and fibre. A mild enzymatic assisted extraction (EAE) involving the use of a protease was tested to evaluate the feasibility of a cascade approach to fractionate the main fruit by-products components. Protease from Bacillus licheniformis (the enzyme used in the AOAC 991.43 official method for dietary fibre quantification) was used, and besides protein, the conditions of hydrolysis (60 °C, neutral pH, overnight) allowed us to dissolve a portion of soluble fibres, which was then separated from the solubilized peptide fraction through ethanol precipitation. Good protein extraction yields, in the range 35–93%, were obtained. The soluble fibre extraction yield ranged from 1.6% to 71% depending on the by-product, suggesting its applicability only for certain substrates, and it was found to be negatively correlated with the molecular weight of the fibre. The monosaccharide composition of the soluble fibres extracted was also diverse. Galacturonic acid was present in a low amount, indicating that pectin was not efficiently extracted. However, a predominance of arabinose and galactose monomers was detected in many fractions, indicating the isolation of a fruit soluble fibre portion with potential similarity with arabinogalactans and gum arabic, opening up perspectives for technological applications. The residual solid pellet obtained after protease assisted extraction was found to be an excellent fibre-rich substrate, suitable for being subjected to more “hard” processing (e.g., sequential pectin and hemicellulose extraction) with the objective to derive other fractions with potential great added economic value.

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Where the Seagrass grows: 78 million tons of residual seagrass deposits accumulate annually on shorelines worldwide. These represent an untapped feedstock for fermentative single-cell oil production, targeted at biofuel and oleochemical generation, without affecting the sensitive marine environment or compromising food security. In this study, seven beach-cast samples of seagrass (related to Z. marina, Z. noltii, S. filiforme, P. australis, P. ocean-ic, and T. testudinum) were collected from marine ecosystems around the world and tested for this purpose. The cover page explains the concept of sustainable bio-oil production by the bio-conversion of beach-cast seagrass to lipids by using oily yeast fermentation. Beach-accumulated seagrass is enzy-matically liquefied into fermentable sugars, and the released sugars are then consumed by the yeast and stored as lipids within cell compartments. The oleaginous yeast Trichosporon oleagi-nous accumulate lipids intracellularly, which can subsequently be extracted and processed to biofuels. More details can be found in the Full Paper by Mahmoud A. Masri et al. (10.1002/ ente.201700604).

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