Principali composti funzionali del pomodoro da industria: metodi analitici e applicazione.

The tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the most diffuse vegetable in the world. In Italy, it embodies a great part of the overall farm production and , in the last century, industries specialized in fresh or processed products have largely spread all over the country. This thesis pertains a work carried out at the horticulture laboratory of the Department of Environmental Agriculture and Vegetable Production, Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Padua. The experiment concerned two cultivar of industrial tomato, containing high concentrations of lycopene, cultivated at the ―L. Toniolo‖ experimental farm, in Legnaro. A 768 m2 surface was divided into plots, according to an experimental scheme of split-split plot, that implied the comparison between 3 factors: two techniques of mulching, two varieties (NPT, AUG) and four times of transplanting (T1, T2, T3, T4). The profile of the main functional compounds was evaluated from the obtained samples; among these compounds there were phenolic acids (gallic acid, cinnamic acid, ferulic acid, caffeic acid, p-coumaric acid and chlorogenic acid), flavonoids (rutin and naringenin) and two carotenoids (lycopene and β-carotene). High pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used for this evaluation; several preliminary tests were made to refine the best analytic methods for the quantification of the above-mentioned metabolites. Moreover an extraction technique, using supercritical CO2, was refined to extract carotenoids and the extraction performance was compared with the classic chemical methodology. The analytic methods for the free phenolic acids and flavonoids resulted reliable to apply them to the examined thesis about tomato. The extraction technique for carotenoids requires further minimal improvements, such as the protection of the sample from light (at dark) and the use of low temperatures (in ice), to limit the degradation of compounds. Regarding the method refined for the SFE, it resulted considerable for analytical purposes but mainly applicable at an industrial level; in fact, it could represent a valid substitute to the use of conventional techniques which employ toxic solvents and are hardly manageable. Finally, the tomato variety which gave best results for the considered functional compounds is AUG; the same is for the mulched variety. Therefore, the mulching technique allows not only a better farming performance 5 but also a better production of the considered compounds. Since these compounds are important in health (antioxidant proprieties) and economy (exploited as colorants), a precocious farm selection of industrial tomato varieties, containing high concentrations of these compounds, could be really convenient.