Alternative to Conventional Edible Oil Sources: Cold Pressing and Supercritical CO2 Extraction of Plum (Prunus domestica L.) Kernel Seed.

Plum (Prunus domestica L.) is a fruit widely cultivated across Europe and its processing generates a considerable amount of waste in form of discharged plum kernels. This creates a new opportunity to exploit plum kernels in order to provide an alternative to conventional edible oils. The main aim of this study was to obtain high-quality oil from plum kernel seeds by applying traditional cold pressing (CP) and supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO2) extraction as a modern tech-nology. The obtained oils were characterized based on the chemical composition of fatty acids and tocopherols. In ob-tained oils, twelve fatty acids were identified. The oleic acid was the most dominant in both oils (68.66% in oil obtained by ScCO2, 65.86% in oil obtained by CP), followed by linoleic acid (22.24-25.44%). While total tocopherols content in oil obtained by ScCO2 was 4 to 5.8-fold higher than CP. The results proved that the utilization of plum kernel seeds possess high potential as an alternative oil source due a high amount of oleic acid and tocopherols and a low amount of saturated fatty acids and amygdalin.