How does instant autovaporization deepen the cold press-extraction process of sunflower vegetal oil?

Abstract

Abstract Sunflower oil industry is interested in both increasing yield and preserving quality of the extracted oil. The current work aimed to investigate the effect of texturing by instant controlled pressure-drop (DIC) on oil cold-press extraction. DIC texturing consists of heating at saturated dry-steam pressure P (200–700\u202fkPa or 110–160\u202f°C), for a short processing time t, followed by an instantaneous pressure-drop (20–40\u202fms) towards a vacuum (3–5\u202fkPa). This resulted in increasing oil pressing-yield up to 46% and 33%, for linoleic and oleic varieties, respectively. It also increased the whole-oil availability by 11%, with the conservation of the biochemical composition of both oil and residual cake. A multi-criteria optimization of the DIC operating parameters; P and t, was performed through a 5-level Central Composite Design (CCD) and statistical analyses. This highlighted the direct significant effect of t on the oil yield while greatly preserving the quality of the final products.