10:09, July 15, 2026

Wine production waste can be used in dietary supplements, cosmetics and to create alcoholic beverages [photo report]

UrFU chemists came up with a new method to dry a by-product of wine production – grape pomace. University scientists, with the participation of specialists from Bangladesh, have identified a temperature golden mean that allows you to extend the shelf life of grape pomace and at the same time slightly affect the amount of useful phenolic compounds, which, for example, include "invigorating" caffeic acid and catechins that strengthen blood vessels and protect tissues from free radicals. Scientists have published a description of the new method in the journal Waste and Biomass Valorization.

Grape pomace is a mixture of grape skins, stems and seeds, which accounts for 20-25% of the raw materials. Currently, this by-product is used to produce food and textile dyes, wine vinegar, alcoholic beverages (grappa, tinctures, chacha), and it is added to cosmetics (lotions, scrubs, creams, and face masks).

"There is a problem with this raw material: fresh grape pomace has high humidity (50-60% water by weight), so they turn sour very quickly and are susceptible to microbial spoilage, they cannot be stored for a long time or efficiently processed. Therefore, the first and important step in processing pomace is to remove water (dehydration), and it should be without destroying useful substances due to heating," said Zakir Hassan, a research engineer at the UrFU Center for Chemical and Pharmaceutical Technologies.

For dehydration of grapes, scientists used equipment common in factories and kitchens – a convection oven, the design of which allows the contents to be heated evenly.

"If you dry grape pomace in the oven, you need to maintain a temperature of 45 to 60 degrees Celsius. A higher drying temperature destroys polyphenolic compounds and affects flavonoids, substances that are also useful for the human body and give grapes color," said Elena Kovaleva, head of the UrFU Laboratory of Biotransformation Technologies and Food Chemistry.

Reference

According to the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV), global wine production in 2023 amounted to about 260 million hectoliters, which corresponds to about 40 million tons of processed grapes and about 8.5–10 million tons of grape pomace.

Delfina Zakharova

Ural Federal University is one of the leading universities in Russia founded in 1920. UrFU is located in Yekaterinburg, the capital of the Ural region, an economic, industrial, scientific and cultural center of Russia. The university is the project office of the Ural Interregional Research and Education Center "Advanced Industrial Technologies and Materials" designed for solving tasks of "Science" National Project.