Enzymatic Aqueous Cottonseed Oil Extraction with Plackett-Burman and Central Composite Design Method
摘要
Cottonseed oil is one of the most widely used edible oils in the World because of its neutral flavor and high smoke point. This oil is found in everything from salad dressings and baked goods to frying oils in restaurants. In this study, pretreatment of enzymatic aqueous extraction (PEAE) was firstly and successfully adopted with ultrasound and homogenization-assisted (UHA)-Ethyl acetate aimining to improve the recovery of cottonseed oil. This work also investigated whether a two-step statistical optimization approach, combining Plackett-Burman Design (PBD) and Central Composite Design (CCD), could be effectively employed to select significant factors, evaluate their interactions, and optimize the extraction conditions. Based on initial tests, an enzyme combination of Alcalase 2.4 L and Cellulast 1.5 L (1:1) was chosen for enzymatic hydrolysis. PBD results identified enzyme concentration and water-to-seed ratio as the most significant factors, which were further optimized by CCD, while homogenization was consistently applied to all experimental runs. Meanwhile, optimal conditions were determined as 2.5% enzyme concentration and a 3:1 mL/g water-to-seed ratio, yielding 82.41% oil recovery, 7.75% free fatty acid content (FFA), and 70.42% radical scavenging activity (RSA). Pearson’s correlation analysis found robust negative correlations between RSA and water-to-seed ratio (r = − 0.940), as well as between FFA and TPC (r = – 0.851), emphasizing noteworthy interrelationships among processing parameters and oil quality. The results highlight, for the first time, the promising potential of the PEAE-UHA-Ethyl Acetate approach in a statistically optimized framework, as a novel, sustainable, and high-efficiency technique for generating cottonseed oil with satisfactory quality metrics.