Valorization of Mango Peels Toward Sustainability and Circular Economy by Combining Pretreatment and Drying With Ultrasound Assisted Extraction: Mathematical Modeling, Functional Properties, and Identification of Mangiferin by HPLC

Mango processing generates a lot of waste, including mango peels (MPs). Therefore, in this work, for valorization purposes, the MPs were pretreated with steam blanching and dried with a tray and vacuum drier, followed by ultrasound-assisted extraction to recover the bioactive compounds. During drying, the moisture diffusivity and energy consumption were measured. Drying kinetics and mathematical modeling were also used to analyze the drying data. Ultrasound was used to extract the bioactive compounds from the dried MP, and mangiferin was identified and quantified using HPLC. Steam blanching improved moisture diffusivity within the sample, thereby lowering energy consumption for both tray drying and vacuum drying processes. Drying data were fitted to mathematical modeling, and according to the Akaike information criterion, the Page model is the best-suited model with R² 0.989–0.999 and RMSE between 0.009 and 0.032. Among tray and vacuum drying, the latter has retained maximum bioactive compounds at 50°C. Further, HPLC analysis confirmed the presence of mangiferin in the sample, and the blanched vacuum-dried sample had the highest amount of mangiferin (0.799 mg g⁻¹) in the MP. These results will benefit industry personnel working on the valorization of food waste, who can utilize steam blanching to reduce energy consumption and improve the retention of mangiferin in the dried MP. These dried peels can be used to fortify food products and enhance the mangiferin content in the samples.