A new fractionation process was developed to achieve valorization of fruit and vegetable pomaces. The importance of the residues from fruits and vegetables is still growing; therefore; the study presents the novel route of a fractioning process for the conversion of agro-industrial biomasses, such as pomaces, into useful feedstocks with potential application in the fields of fuels, chemicals, and polymers. Hence, the biorefinery process is expected to convert them into various by-products offering a great diversity of low-cost materials. The final product of the process is the cellulose of the biofuel importance. The study presents the novel route of the fractioning process for the conversion of agro-industrial biomasses, such as pomaces, into useful feedstocks with a potential application in the fields of fuels, chemicals, and polymers. Therefore the aim of this paper was to present the novel route of the pomaces fraction and the characterization of residuals. Pomaces from apple, cucumber, carrot, and tomato were treated sequentially with water, acidic solution, alkali solution, and oxidative reagent in order to obtain fractions reach in sugars, pectic polysaccharides, hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin. Pomaces were characterized by dry matter content, neutral detergent solubles, hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin. Obtained fractions were characterized by the content of pectins expressed as galacturonic acid equivalent and hemicelluloses expressed as a xyloglucan equivalent. The last fraction and residue was cellulose characterized by crystallinity degree by X-ray diffractometer (XRD), microfibril diameter by atomic force microscope (AFM), and overall morphology by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The hemicelluloses content was similar in all pomaces. Moreover, all the materials were characterized by the high pectins level in extracts evaluated as galacturonic acid content. The lignins content compared with other plant biomasses was on a very low level. The cellulose fraction was the highest in cucumber pomace. The cellulose fraction was characterized by crystallinity degree, microfibril diameter, and overall morphology. Isolated cellulose had a very fine structure with relatively high crystalline index but small crystallites.

Main conclusion The Young’s modulus of the primary cell walls of pears decreases linearly during the pre-harvest on-tree maturation and increases during postharvest storage, and does not correlate with firmness of fruit. The determination of mechanical properties of cell walls is indispensable for understanding the mechanism of physiological softening and deterioration of quality of fruits during postharvest storage. The Young’s modulus of the primary cell walls from pear fruit (Pyrus communis L., cultivars ‘Conference’ and ‘Xenia’) during pre-harvest maturation and postharvest storage in an ambient atmosphere at 2 °C followed by shelf life was studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results were related to the firmness of fruits, galacturonic acid content in water, chelator, sodium carbonate and insoluble pectin fractions, polygalacturonase and pectin methylesterase activities. The Young’s modulus of the primary cell walls decreased linearly during the last month of pre-harvest maturation from 3.2 ± 1.8 to 1.1 ± 0.7 MPa for ‘Conference’ and from 1.9 ± 1.2 to 0.2 ± 0.1 MPa for ‘Xenia’ which correlated with linear firmness decrease. During postharvest storage the cell wall Young’s modulus increased while firmness continued to decrease. Correlation analysis for the entire period of the experiment showed a lack of straightforward relation between the Young’s modulus of primary cell walls and fruit firmness. The Young’s modulus of cell walls correlated negatively either with galacturonic acid content in sodium carbonate soluble pectin (‘Conference’) or with insoluble pectin fractions (‘Xenia’) and positively with polygalacturonase activity. It was therefore evidenced that covalently linked pectins play the key role for the stiffness of fruit cell walls. Based on the obtained results, the model explaining the fruit transition from firm and crispy to soft and mealy was proposed.