Aqueous Integrated Process for the Recovery of Oil Bodies or Fatty Acid Emulsions from Sunflower Seeds

Abstract

An aqueous integrated process was developed to obtain several valuable products from sunflower seeds. With a high-shear rate crusher, high-pressure homogenization and centrifugation, it is possible to process 600× g of seeds in 1400× g of water to obtain a concentrated cream phase with a dry matter (dm) content of 46%, consisting of 74 (w/w dm) lipids in the form of an oil-body dispersion (droplet size d(0.5): 2.0 µm) rich in proteins (13% w/w dm, with membranous and extraneous proteins). The inclusion of an enzymatic step mediated by a lipase made possible the total hydrolysis of trigylcerides into fatty acids. The resulting cream had a slightly higher lipid concentration, a ratio lipid/water closer to 1, with a dry matter content of 57% consisting of 69% (w/w) lipids, a more complex structure, as observed on Cryo-SEM, with a droplet size slightly greater (d(0.5): 2.5 µm) than that of native oil bodies and a conserved protein concentration (12% w/w dm) but an almost vanished phospholipid content (17.1 ± 4.4 mg/g lipids compared to 144.6 ± 6 mg/g lipids in the oil-body dispersion and 1811.2 ± 122.2 mg/g lipids in the seed). The aqueous phases and pellets were also characterized, and their mineral, lipid and protein contents provide new possibilities for valorization in food or technical applications.

The Use of Sea Buckthorn Processing Products in the Creation of a Functional Biologically Active Food Emulsion

“…The study of the fractional and fatty acid composition of soy and sunflower phospholipids confirms the data from such researchers as Caysen A. et al, (2022) [ 34 ].…”

“…As reported in the available sources, the surface activity of lecithin is due to the presence of a phosphatidylcholine fraction. Its molecule has non-polar (two fatty acid groups) and polar (phosphorylcholine) parts [ 32 , 34 ]. We found that the examined phospholipid samples contain 45% or more of this fraction.…”

“…The most valuable fraction is phosphatidylcholine. Its molecules have both non-polar (two fatty acid groups) and polar (phosphorylcholine) parts [ 34 ]. It is this structure that accounts for the surfactant properties of phosphatidylcholine.…”

“…There are many studies on the composition and properties of sea buckthorn varieties [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 43 ] and plant phospholipids obtained from various sources [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 39 ]. However, the content of biologically active metabolites in plants depends not only on the species, but also on the variety, and local geographical and climatic conditions.…”

Oil content, fatty acid and phytosterol compositions of chia seeds cultivated under organic conditions in France

“…Our reports have studied the chemical composition of different oil crops species as Brassicaceae (rapeseed and woad), shell seeds (sunflower and safflower) and oleoproteaginous and mucilaginous seeds (flax, camelina; Roche et al, 2010a, 2010b: Fabre et al, 2015, 2020: Zemour et al, 2021: Cassen et al, 2022. In a first publication, we studied the accumulation of oil and both fatty acid and sterols composition during seed development and filling of chia (Gravé et al, 2019).…”