Use of supercritical CO 2 to improve the quality of lupin protein isolate.

Lupins are an excellent source of protein which can be used to obtain protein isolates with potential use in the food industry. Some studies use supercritical CO ₂ (SC-CO ₂ ) to defat legume flours, but no study analyzes the effect of applying this technology directly to the protein isolate. This article has proposed the use of SC-CO ₂ to improve lupin protein isolate (LPI) quality. SC-CO ₂ increased the LPI purity while reducing oil and other antitechnological factors (saponins and polyphenols). The treatment significantly improved the LPI color due to the elimination of the lipid fraction and lipophilic pigments (carotenoids). No changes in amino acid contents or chemical score were observed due to the SC-CO ₂ . Finally, the treatment improved or did not affect the main LPI technofunctional properties. Therefore, SC-CO ₂ is a promising technique to enhance the quality of protein isolates, without affecting or improving their functional properties.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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