Recovery of Pistacia lentiscus edible oil by using 2-methyloxolane as an eco-friendly and sustainable solvent

The extraction of oil from oilseeds is conventionnaly performed using n-hexane. However, due to its toxicity and drawbacks, there is a growing need to explore greener solvents. In this study, 2-methyloxolane (2-MeOx) was selected to evaluate its potential as a replacement for n-hexane in extracting lipophilic compounds from Pistacia lentiscus seeds. Hansen solubility parameters were used to predict the solubility of target compounds in the selected solvents. Experimental analyses were focused on the extraction yield, fatty acid composition, sterol and tocopherol contents. As n-hexane, ours results indicated that 2-MeOx yielded similar performance in terms of extraction yield, fatty acid composition, sterol and tocopherol contents. Additionally, 2-MeOx extract demonstrated a high polyphenol content and exhibited strong antioxidant potential. Furthermore, it was shown that green extracted oil at low concentration had no cytotoxicity against macrophages. Moreover, the oil exhibited anti-inflammatory activity and suppressed nitric oxide (NO) secretion considerably on LPS-stimulated macrophages with IC₅₀ value of 33.04 µg/mL.