Waste from oil industry: a possible beneficial resource

It’s common to buy olive oil from Italy, being one of the largest producers. On the other hand, these industries generate a large number of residues, which require a significant amount of energy to be wasted. The benefits of olive oil are widely known, which is why it was thought that even waste could contain bioactive compounds. Based on type of industry, olive oil could be obtained through two-, two and half and three phases extraction procedure, obtaining olive oil, solid waste and olive pomace and, sometimes, wastewater and solid suspension. Starting from two and half waste products (the middle of three considered producers), a green extraction method was validated with Design of Experiment protocol. The analysis was conducted with a common instrumentation such as HPLC-PDA, through a method which permits to separate more than twenty analytes, specifically polyphenols [1, 2]. Firstly, type of extraction method was evaluated, between solid- liquid extraction and ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE). Once UAE was chosen, various parameters were optimized such as solid: liquid ratio, type of solvents, time, and temperature. The application of the optimized protocol to the others waste products has shown excellent results in terms of yield. The extracted products were additionally subjected to biological tests to evaluate antioxidant activity. Based on this approach, Green Chemistry and bioeconomy are matching, showing that many scientific fields could be “greener”. This study opens the possibility to re-use waste products from olive industry, useful in many fields, for example in cosmetic products, being natural compounds very attractive for people and industry both.