Improvement of Olive Oil Quality with Innovative Olive Cleaning System

Abstract

Turkey is considered the homeland of olives and is one of the important olive oil producers of the world. With the increasing number of trees, the necessity to complete olive harvest in a short time, like 3-4 months, makes mechanization necessary. The use of mechanical devices during olive harvest causes an increase in the number of leaves, shoots, and branches in the harvested product. Leaf separation systems used in cleaning non-olive materials in olives are generally inadequate in cleaning olives containing dense leaves obtained due to the use of new generation harvesting machines. For this reason, to develop an innovative sorting/cleaning prototype to provide more efficient cleaning, it is necessary to determine the machine efficiency, oil efficiency, olive oil quality and composition of machines. Total phenolics, chlorophyll and carotenoid contents, induction period and DPPH antioxidant activity values of olive oil obtained after traditional suction fan system (TSFS) application were higher than olive oils obtained after new generation blown and drum sieve system (NGBDSS) application. However, the α-tocopherol content of olives was low in the samples obtained by TSFS. The fatty acid composition of olive oils obtained from both applications was similar. Our study determined that there were 13 volatile compounds in the olive oil obtained after applying the TSFS, and there were 6 volatile compounds in the olive oil obtained with the application of NGBDSS. When the sensory properties of olive oils were analyzed, it was found that olive oils obtained from both applications were similar to the fruitiness, bitterness, and pungency of olive oils obtained after applying NGBDSS.