Thinned fruits are agricultural by-products which nowadays have few economic or environmental benefits. However, previous studies have revealed that these immature fruits have a large amount of antioxidant compounds. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether pulsed electric fields (PEF) might be a suitable green technology for enhancing the extraction of phenols, flavonoids and antioxidant compounds from fresh thinned peaches, thus reducing the use of methanol. Moreover, response surface methodology has been used to determine the optimal PEF treatment conditions, observing that the solvent is the main factor. The highest amounts of bioactive compounds were extracted using 80% methanol and no PEF. Methanol combined with PEF produced a negative effect on the extraction yield. However, the use of water as a solvent increased the amount of total bioactive compounds and individual phenols (chlorogenic acid, coumaric acid and neochlorogenic acid). Thus, PEF-assisted extraction of bioactive compounds from thinned peach fruits using water as a solvent is an alternative to conventional extraction methods which require dried products, large amounts of organic solvents and long extraction times.

稀果是农业副产品，如今几乎没有经济或环境效益。但是，以前的研究表明这些未成熟的果实含有大量的抗氧化剂化合物。这项研究的目的是评估脉冲电场（PEF）是否可能是一种适合的绿色技术，用于增强从新鲜的稀桃中提取酚，类黄酮和抗氧化剂的含量，从而减少甲醇的使用。此外，观察到溶剂是主要因素，因此使用响应面方法确定最佳的PEF处理条件。使用80％的甲醇而不使用PEF提取了最高量的生物活性化合物。甲醇与PEF结合会对提取率产生负面影响。然而，使用水作为溶剂会增加总生物活性化合物和单个酚（绿原酸，香豆酸和新绿原酸）的含量。因此，使用水作为溶剂从稀桃果实中用PEF辅助提取生物活性化合物是常规提取方法的替代方法，该方法需要干燥产品，大量有机溶剂和较长提取时间。