Enzyme-Assisted Aqueous Oil Extraction from High Oleic Sunflower Seeds in a Scalable Prototype Reactor

Abstract

Enzyme assisted aqueous extraction processing (EAEP) facilitates the production of high quality oils without the need for chemical refining. However, up to date, oil recovery remains remarkably below that found in mechanical and solvent extraction. In this study, response surface methodology (RSM) was applied, to optimize oil extraction from high oleic sunflower seeds via EAEP in a prototype automatic continuous stirred-tank extractor. Temperature, enzyme mass, water mass and proton concentration were varied for the exploration of optimum process conditions. The fit of a full second-order model was significant (p = 0.003), while the lack of fit was non-significant (p = 0.111). A local maximum was found at an extraction efficiency of 82.18%. A subsequent mass balance succeeded in reproducing the results from the RSM optimization. 93.03 ± 2.80% of the initial total mass was recovered, of which 90.90 ± 4.3% could be related to the components of the fractions.