Influence of enzymatic treatment parameters on the press pumkin oil yeild and its properties

The influence of parameters of pumpkin seeds pretreatment with enzyme preparations of proteolytic and cellulolytic activity on the yield of press oil, its composition and quality parameters were studied in this work. The enzyme preparation PENICILOPEPSIN (Enzym Biotech, Ukraine) with proteolytic activity and CELLULAD (Enzym Biotech, Ukraine) with cellulolytic, hemicellulase and xylanase activity were used for pretreatment. Enzymatic treatment of seeds was carried out with a mixture of these preparations at a ratio of 7:3 for 2 h at a pH 5.2 and 48—54°C. The following parameters of enzymatic pretreatment were studied: the amount of the enzyme mixture, which varied from 0.3% to 2.4% of the weight of the seeds and the amount of moisture added together with the enzymes — from 15% to 50%. It was established that the rational parameters of the enzymatic treatment of pumpkin seeds are the mass of the enzyme mixture of 0.6% and the amount of moisture added with enzymes — 35% of the seed mass. Under such technological parameters, the yield of press pumpkin oil was 65.6%, which is almost 6% higher than in the control sample. The acid and anisidine value of the control oil sample and the oil extracted after the enzymatic treatment of the seeds did not differ significantly. However, the content of peroxide compounds in the oil extracted after enzymatic treatment of seeds was lower. The total antioxidant activity of the oil, determined by the reaction of the 2,2-diphenyl-1- picrylhydrazyl radicals quenching within 30 min, was higher in the oil samples after seed pretreatment at the maximum tested moisture (50%). The obtained results indicate that the enzymatic pretreatment of pumpkin seeds with proteolytic and cellulolytic enzyme preparations is a promising method of oil yield increasing.