Obtaining oil, fermentable sugars, and platform chemicals from Butia odorata seed using supercritical fluid extraction and subcritical water hydrolysis

Abstract

Butia odorata seeds (BOS) present high economical potential because they contain oil and lignocellulosic compounds. Oil extracted by supercritical technology may have potential use in the food industry and the remaining solid from the process can be used to produce second- generation ethanol from the hydrolysis of its carbohydrates to obtain fermentable sugars. This work evaluates the processing of BOS using supercritical fluid extraction (SFE), to obtain oil, and subsequent subcritical water hydrolysis (SWH) of SFE residue (BOSR), to obtain fermentable sugars and platform chemicals. Kinetic curves at temperatures of 40 °C and 60 °C, and pressures of 18, 20, and 22 MPa were obtained for SFE using CO2 as solvent, with the best oil yield of 29.05 ± 1.42 wt% at 60 °C and 22 MPa. In the SWH, the explored conditions were 230 °C and 260 °C for temperature, 50 and 100 for solvent to feed ratio (S/F) with a constant pressure of 15 MPa. The best results for the yields of fermentable sugars and platform chemicals were 5.78 ± 1.15 g/100 g and 2.90 ± 0.24 g/100 g, respectively, at 260 °C and S/F 50.