Recycling of packaging materials to obtain an oenological adjuvant

Circular economy is aimed to create a zero-waste system by the reduction of wastes and their exploitation by turning them into by-products to be used as inputs for new production processes. In this perspective, packaging materials (glass and aluminium) were used to synthetize zeolitic materials to be evaluated for oenological application. A potassium (Zeo-K) and a sodium (Zeo-Na) zeolitic material (Zeo-K and Zeo-Na) were obtained, containing 16% and 30% of crystalline materials respectively. Both materials were then tested as oenological adjuvants, evaluating their ability to remove riboflavin from wines. Riboflavin is responsible of a photoxidation process leading to the onset of the light-struck taste in wines. Preliminary experiments were performed using a model wine solution, enriched with 300 g L-1 of riboflavin. Each zeolite was added to the riboflavin-enriched solution at the concentrations of 1 g L-1 (Zeo-K1, Zeo-Na1) and 10 g L-1 (Zeo-K10, Zeo-Na10). For comparison, two bentonites were also tested at the concentration of 1 g L-1. A control without either zeolites or bentonites was also run. The obtained results showed that riboflavin concentration remained unvaried in the control, whereas it decreased from 4% (Zeo-K1) to 37% (Zeo-Na10) in the treatments. Both zeolitic materials appeared less efficient than bentonites at the same concentration. Nevertheless, synthesizing zeolites with higher crystallinity is likely to lead to materials with higher efficiency, almost comparable to bentonites. Efforts are being undertaken to produce more effective zeolites from waste materials for oenological applications and to evaluate possible secondary effects on wine properties