Potential of the amazonian exotic fruit for biorefineries: The Theobroma bicolor (Makambo) case

The Amazonas is the largest Colombian province in extension, with a great potential to develop new added-value products. However, its logistic situation, presents significant difficulties to the marketing of these resources. Makambo is an Amazonian fruit associated with Cocoa and Copoazu fruits. In this study, two biorefinery processes (scenarios) for processing of Makambo fruit were analyzed in order to establish its potential as an economic alternative. The first scenario considered the production of fruit pulp, butter and residual cake. The second scenario considered the co-production of fruit pulp, butter, residual cake, phenolic compounds extract, biogas and biofertilizer. The chemical composition of Makambo fruit and the phenolic compounds extraction yields were determined experimentally. The results showed that Scenario 2 has the best performance from the economic and environmental perspectives. Moreover, it was concluded that simulation techniques are powerful tools that allow minimizing time, cost and not affect the natural equilibrium of the ecosystems with experimentation. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.