Transfer of Phenolic Compounds from Olive Mill Wastewater to Olive Cake Oil

The transfer of the phenolic compounds from olive mill wastewater (OMW) to oil extracted under microwave from olive cake (OC) was carried out by using the following operations: mixing of the olive mill wastewater with the olive cake, drying of the mixture and recovery by solvent of the olive cake oil enriched by phenolic compounds. In the first part of this work, we made a screening design using a Hadamard matrix to quickly locate the factors influencing the process. Among five potentially influential parameters, we found that only three were actually active (OMW/OC ratio noted R, mixing velocity of mixture Vm and mixing time Tm). In the second part, fractional factorial design (2^5?1) was performed to evaluate the effects of five variables (three of them being selected by screening with exposition time Te and radiation power P) and their eventual interactions. The p value (p < 0.05) indicated that R, P,Te, Vm and Tm had significant effects on the response followed by the interaction effects between R‐P, P‐Te, R‐Vm, Te‐Vm, Te‐Tm, and Vm‐Tm. Under optimal conditions, the addition of OMW to OC increased the phenolic compounds content in the oil from 0.04 ± 0.01 to 0.13 ± 0.02 g/L.