Oil expelling from whole and dehulled sunflower seeds: Optimization of screw pressing parameters and Physico-chemical quality

Abstract

The important oil expelling parameters was optimized using dehulled and whole sunflower seeds at variable sample moisture and press head temperature in two different experiments. Box-Behnken design of response surface methodology was used to plan the study considering 60-80g dehulled sunflower, 20-40g whole sunflower and 6-10% (w.b.) sample moisture while press head temperature was 50-90oC. The oil expelling parameters such as oil recovery, residual oil in meal, press rate, sediment content in oil, oil and meal temperature, free fatty acid (FFA) were taken as dependent variables. This study indicated that 68.64% dehulled sunflower with 31.36% whole sunflower having 6% sample moisture may be considered for oil expelling of sunflower at 71.5˚C press head temperature.