Aqueous Enzymatic Extraction of Buriti (Mauritia Flexuosa) Oil: Yield and Antioxidant Compounds

Enzyme-assisted aqueous extraction is considered an emerging green technique that has been applied to different oilseeds. This study aimed to study the enzymatic aqueous extraction process of buriti oil using a central composite rotatable design (CCRD) combined with the response surface methodology aiming to obtain higher yield and antioxidant compounds in the oil. The study was carried out in two steps. The first assessed the efficiency of different enzymes (cellulase, pectinase, and protease) and the variables of greater influence in the extraction process, being conducted for each enzyme a CCRD design. The second step was carried out with the enzyme that showed the best performance on the extraction yield, changing the experimental bands of the variables that had greater significance in the first step, with the goal of broadening the spectrum of study. Were also evaluated in this step, total carotenoids, total phenolic compounds, and the antioxidant capacity of the oils extracted. In the first experiment, cellulase gave the highest yield, while the most significant variables were temperature and time. For the second design, performed with cellulase, were defined as optimal operating conditions at 55 °C temperature, 2% enzyme concentration and 6 hours extraction. For these conditions, the yield obtained was 76.5%, with total carotenoid concentration of 3,119.5 µg β-carotene.g-1. Analysis of variance was performed and showed the significance of the regression and non-significance of the lack-of-fit (p<0.05). The coefficients of determination of the yield and carotenoid content were 95.6% and 94.5%, respectively. The highest value of total phenolic compounds determined for buriti oil in this study was 254 ± 5 µg GAE.g-1 oil, while for the antioxidant capacity was 218.0 ± 0.3 µmol Trolox.g-1 oil. The enzymatic aqueous extraction process is viable for buriti oil and produced oils with high concentrations of antioxidant compounds.