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Abstract:

The Moringa oleifera Lam.(MO) plant has characteristics that makeS it suitable for various uses related to environmental remediation, development of cosmetics, pharmaceutical and food products, among others. This project contemplates and put together several areas of science, including: engineering and biomedicine with several objectives framed within a circular economy, bioeconomy and sustainability approach. The intention is to i. promote the use of MO available in Ecuador, as a biomaterial with rheological contributions; ii. extract bioactive chemical compounds; iii. evaluate its antioxidant, antimicrobial and cytotoxicity activities; iv. take advantage of the waste generated during moringa oil extraction processes for use in water recovery processes; and, v. develop food, cosmetic, nutraceutical, therapeutic and environmentally applicable products. In Ecuador, MO is mostly used in nutraceutics and as a dietary complement [1]. MO has high nutritional content and provides rheological fluid characteristics. The protein content of Ecuadorian MO powder from its leaf is 29.46 g/100 g and from cotyledon (oil free, and provided as waste, that is, residual lignocellulosic biomass) is 48.28 g/100 g. These values exceed those present in foods of plant origin such as soybeans, quinoa and beans; and, also surpassing the values in foods such as beef and poultry [2]. On the other hand, the content of total carbohydrates in the powder of dry moringa leaves was lower than that of products such as quinoa, beans, corn, rice and wheat [3]; while crude fiber content is comparable to that found in foods such as oats, bread, whole wheat pasta and cooked lentils [4].