The Laboratory of Food Biotechnology & Recycling of Agricultural By-products is active in the following subjects:
Food Technology
- Improvement of olive oil by biotechnological means (enzymes addition during olive paste malaxation) and study of its qualitative characteristics.
- Physicochemical changes and acrylamide production, during potato frying in various oils.
- Investigation of the content of bioactive polysaccharides (β-glycans) of native mushrooms and cereals (wheat, barley and oats), that can be used as additives in foods for the production of new competitive products of high added value.
- Physicochemical analyses in foodstuffs.
- Cereal Quality Characteristics As Affected By Controlled Atmospheric Storage Conditions.
Recycling of Agricultural By-products
- Integrated waste management of oil mills in the European Union.
- Recycling of oil mill waste-water with membrane technology, and/or biotechnological and physico-chemical methods (with activated carbon from agro-industrial waste etc).
- Management of contaminated soils with oil mills waste, using zeolite.
- Recycling of waste-residues for the production of soil improvers (olive oil mill wastewater, olive oil mill pomace, sewage sludge, etc.).
- Waste treatment with micro-organisms for the production of high added value biotechnological products, such as:
- wine grape skin and potato starch liquid waste with Aureobasidium pullulans for the production of the polysaccharide “pullulan”,
- Protein enrichment of orange peel and sugar beet pulp from Sugar Industry with solid state fermentation for the production of animal feed
- molasses or grape skin pulp with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, for the replacement of fish meal with microbial protein,
- molasses, maize, potato peel waste and sorghum with Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast for bioethanol production.
- Destruction of obsolete pesticides stocks and other liquid waste (olive oil mills, urban waste water, leachate from landfills etc.) by electrolysis.
A significant number of European and national research programs have been implemented in the laboratory or are in progress. Through these projects the laboratory has collaborated with many Universities and Research Centers in Greece and abroad, as well as with the Greek food industry. The results of the research have been published in international and domestic journals and have been announced in conference proceedings.
The Laboratory of Food Biotechnology & Recycling of Agricultural By-products is fully equipped and uses classic and modern techniques and equipment such as microscopes, HPLC, GC, GC / MS. It also has a 10-25 liter bioreactor for liquid fermentation as well as a pilot semi-industrial bioclimatic solid fermentation chamber.
