Multivariate analysis of the spectroscopic profile of the sugar fraction of apple pomace

ABSTRACT

Pomace, the main by-product of apple juice processing, contains all the fruit's compounds such as minerals, sugars, fibers, enzymes and secondary metabolites after bioprocessing. Dried pomace from four apple varieties (Gala, Fuji, Catarina and Joaquina) was used to extract fructose, glucose, and sucrose, the main soluble sugars contained in apple pomace, to verify the possible use of the sugar fractions. The concentrated sugars were characterized by NMR and FTIR. The partial least squares method (PLS) applied to the NMR and FTIR spectra revealed large amounts of fructose, glucose, and sucrose, without the presence of others compounds. Principal component analysis (PCA) discriminated the studied apple varieties, with a 99% level of significance, as function of the amount of each sugar in the respective extracts.