Techno-Economic Evaluation of the Production of Protein Hydrolysed from Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) Using Supercritical Fluids and Conventional Solvent Extraction

Abstract

: The production of quinoa protein hydrolysate (QPH) using two technologies to extract the oil and separate the phenolic compounds (PC) prior to enzymatic hydrolysis were evaluated: (1) Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE), and (2) Conventional solvent extraction (CSE). The economic evaluation and sensitivity study was performed using SuperPro Designer ® 9.0 software, quinoa grain batches of 1.5 kg (laboratory) and 2500 kg (industrial scale) were considered. The results re-vealed that SFE allows higher yields and separation of PC, however, Both processes are economi-cally promising, especially when the QPH and by-products are produced in large scale and sold at the current market price.