Abstract
Olive (Olea europaea) processing results in large amounts of by-products that contain valuable molecules such as phenolic compounds and phytosterols. These molecules have demonstrated to reduce blood cholesterol levels. This work proposes the development of a method to obtain simultaneously phenolic compounds and phytosterols from the olive stone using CO2-expanded liquid extraction. Hansen solubility parameters were employed for the theoretical prediction of the most suitable bio-based solvent to extract target compounds. The Box–Behnken experimental design was employed to select the optimal conditions of pressure (8–25 MPa), the molar fraction of CO2 in ethyl acetate (0.15–0.55), and the temperature (40–80 °C). Extracts showing the highest and the lowest reductions of micellar cholesterol solubility capacity were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry to find out the compounds responsible for this activity. Different phenolic compounds, free fatty acids, and phytosterols were identified in the extracts. β-Sitosterol and, especially, tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol were the compounds that primarily contributed to the reduction of micellar cholesterol solubility capacity.
Highlights
IntroductionSeveral studies reported the potential reuse of olive stones for animal feeding, composting, and biofuel and energy production because of their high protein and oil content [4,5,6]
There is an increasing interest for obtaining bioactive compounds from natural sources for the elaboration of functionalElectronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.Olive processing generates a large amount of by-products which are made up basically of leaves, wood, peel, and stones which tend to be underused and undervalued [3]
Four different bio-based solvents covering a broad range of polarities were employed: ethanol, D-limonene, ethyl lactate, and ethyl acetate
Summary
Several studies reported the potential reuse of olive stones for animal feeding, composting, and biofuel and energy production because of their high protein and oil content [4,5,6]. Recent researches proposed a new strategy for exploiting olive stones. This strategy is based on the extraction of olive stone proteins followed by their hydrolysis to obtain valuable peptides with antioxidant, antihypertensive, antitumoral, and hypocholesterolemic properties [7,8,9]. Another important part of the olive seed is its oil fraction. Olive seed oil presents an interesting nutritional profile due to the presence of fatty acids, vitamins, carotenoids, phytosterols, phenolic compounds, and Vásquez-Villanueva R. et al
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