Abstract

Olive (Olea europaea L.) oil processing produces significant amount of waste that can be utilized for the production of high value-added ingredients for various industrial applications. In this work, the effects of temperature on drying kinetics and quality indexes of the olive-waste cake during convective dehydration (40-90 degrees C) were investigated. Results on effective moisture diffusivity, physicochemical parameters, fatty acid profile, total phenolic, flavonoid, and flavanol contents a well as antioxidant capacity are also reported. Most of the fatty acids increased their content with respect to control sample with a temperature increase, i.e. oleic and linoleic acids increased 48% and 43% at 70 and 40 degrees C, respectively. Total flavanol content increased with temperature (48-62 mg catechin equivalents [CTE] 100 g(-1) DM) except for 80 degrees C. Total phenolic and total flavonoid contents were highly correlated to antioxidant capacity (0.923 < r < 0.992), except for 70 and 80 degrees C, the rest of the samples maintained their initial antioxidant capacity by ORAC analysis. Thus, these parameters show that dried olive-waste cake has a high bioactive compounds with potential use as additives for the food or other industries.