Valorisation, Green Extraction Development, and Metabolomic Analysis of Wild Artichoke By-Product Using Pressurised Liquid Extraction UPLC–HRMS and Multivariate Data Analysis

Valorisation of food by-products has recently attracted considerable attention due to the opportunities to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of the food production chain. Large quantities of non-edible parts of the artichoke plant (Cynara cardunculus L.) comprising leaves, stems, roots, bracts, and seeds are discarded annually during industrial processing. These by-products contain many phytochemicals such as dietary fibres, phenolic acids, and flavonoids, whereby the most challenging issue concerns about the recovery of high-added value components from these by-products. The aim of this work is to develop a novel valorisation strategy for the sustainable utilisation of artichoke leaves’ waste, combining green pressurised-liquid extraction (PLE), spectrophotometric assays and UPLC–HRMS phytochemical characterization, to obtain bioactive-rich extract with high antioxidant capacity. Multivariate analysis of the major selected metabolites was used to compare different solvent extraction used in PLE.