Georgia produces about 70 thousand tonnes of mandarins annually, 50% of which gets exported. Local fruit juice industry utilizes most of the mandarins left in the country to produce mandarin juice. However, the leftover mandarin pomace causes serious environmental issues as the piled up pomace waste leaches acidic decomposting products as well as essential oils into the environment. Mandarin pomace is a rich source of fine chemicals and the project will develop environmentally friendly technologies to extrat those chemicals from the waste.
Studies on semi-industrial scale extraction of hemp, optimisation of conditions.
Destillation of extracts, CBD crystallization. CBD fractionation by
flush-chromatography.
ECAC unites the competence and analytical capabilities of three prominent organizations in Estonia: University of Tartu, Tallinn University of Technology and the Estonian Environmental Research Centre and offers access to analytical instruments as well as services and collaboration both to academia and industry.This network enables the use of analytical apparatus in an optimal way and avoids duplication.
The main objectives of ECAC are:
(1) to create a “cross-user network” between research institutions. This allows the users easily to carry out complex projects, which require advanced apparatus. In addition, it avoids the duplication of the equipment (Objectives 1, 2.1, 2.3, 2.4).
(2) to be an innovation and technology development support unit for R&D projects and industrial innovation (incl. to achieve the goals of a smart specialisation) (Objective 1)
(3) to be the center of analytical chemistry education and knowledge transfer (Objective 3);
(4) to be the support structure in analytical chemistry for Estonia's participation in various EU cooperation networks such as ESA, Eurachem, Euramet / EMPIR (Objectives 2.2, 3).