Abstract
Olive pomace management represents a great concern to the olive oil industry. This work focused on the development of a “zero waste” strategy for olive pomace based on a fractionation approach resulting in the obtention of different value-added fractions. The physicochemical composition of edible fractions obtained (liquid and pulp) was analysed. The potential use as a solid biofuel of the non-edible fraction (stones) was evaluated. High amounts of hydroxytyrosol (513.61–625.76 mg/100 g dry weight) were present in the liquid fraction. Pulp fraction was demonstrated to be a good source of fibre (53–59% dry weight) with considerable antioxidant activity both from free and bound phenolics. The stones fraction exhibited substantial high heating values (18.65–18.94 megajoule (MJ/kg). All these results support the added value of the olive pomace fractions combining the biofuel potential from the stones fraction and the functional food ingredients’ potential both from liquid and pulp fractions. The present methodology seems to be a feasible whole valorisation approach to achieve the circularity in the olive oil sector, prioritising obtaining high over low added-value products.
Highlights
The reduction and valorisation of by-products is one of the biggest challenges of the food industry.Nowadays, there is an increasing concern for the achievement of a more sustainable food production chain, in reducing the environmental impact of its by-products or the costs associated with its proper treatment [1]
The wet and dry fractionation applied to crude olive pomace samples from olive mills (OM) 1, and OM 2 was shown to be reproducible
A higher water loss occurred during the drying of liquid and solid fraction from OM 2 due to their higher moisture than the liquid and solid fraction obtained from OM1
Summary
The reduction and valorisation of by-products is one of the biggest challenges of the food industry.Nowadays, there is an increasing concern for the achievement of a more sustainable food production chain, in reducing the environmental impact of its by-products or the costs associated with its proper treatment [1]. Besides the economic and environmental consequences, there is an ethical and moral dimension within the general concept of global food security, since 805 million people across the globe suffer from hunger [2]. These negative impacts are even more flagrant in growing industries, like the olive oil industry (mainly in the Mediterranean countries), that produce large quantities of by-products and wastes [1,3]. Between all the wastes and by-products of the olive industry, the olive pomace is the most representative [5]. Olive pomace is a combination of olive husk and pulp, crushed olive stone and olive mill wastewater with a moisture content of 65% [6] that derives from the modern two-phase extraction method, in which no water is added (more eco-friendly than the three-phase process) [7]
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