Obtaining oil and fermentable sugars from olive pomace using sequential supercritical fluid extraction and enzymatic hydrolysis

Olive pomace has high economic potential and the supercritical technology for extraction produces oil with potential use in the food and biofuels industries. The remaining solid can be used to obtain fermentable sugars from the hydrolysis. The present work aims to evaluate the effect of supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) of pomace olive oil at 60 and 40 °C and 18 and 22 MPa on oil yield and composition. Furthermore, use the remaining solid of SFE to obtain fermentable sugars from enzymatic hydrolysis. Kinetic curves were obtained for SFE, with the best oil yields 19.36 ± 2.43 wt% obtained at 40 °C / 22 MPa. The antioxidant activity was better for (60 °C / 22 MPa) presenting 137.87 ± 1.04 µmol TEAC / g am. dry. The highest yield of fermentable sugar (Y_FS) was 41.02 ± 4.79 g defatted olive pomace (DOP) for 26 Filter Paper Unit (FPU) / 1% solid loading (CS).