The wastes generated during the olive oil extraction process, even if presenting a negative impact for the environment, contain several bioactive compounds that have considerable health benefits. After suitable extraction and purification, these compounds can be used as food antioxidants or as active ingredients in nutraceutical and cosmetic products due to their interesting technological and pharmaceutical properties. The aim of this review, after presenting general applications of the different types of wastes generated from this industry, is to focus on the olive pomace produced by the two-phase system and to explore the challenging applications of the main individual compounds present in this waste. Hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol, oleuropein, oleuropein aglycone, and verbascoside are the most abundant bioactive compounds present in olive pomace. Besides their antioxidant activity, these compounds also demonstrated other biological properties such as antimicrobial, anticancer, or anti-inflammatory, thus being used in formulations to produce pharmaceutical and cosmetic products or in the fortification of food. Nevertheless, it is mandatory to involve both industries and researchers to create strategies to valorize these byproducts while maintaining environmental sustainability.
The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science
and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial
support through national funds FCT/MCTES to C2TN
(UIDB/04349/2020), CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020) and
Joana Madureira (SFRH/BD/136506/2018). Lillian Barros
thank the national funding by FCT, P.I., through the
institutional scientific employment program-contract.
The authors thank the European Regional Development
Fund (ERDF), through the Incentive System to Research
and Technological development within the Portugal2020
Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational
Program for the mobilizing project “BIOMA” (POCI-
01-0247-FEDER-046112). The Agroenvironment Unit
is supported by Junta de Castilla y León (Escalera de
Excelencia CLU-2018-04) co-funded by the P.O. FEDER of
Castilla y León 2014–2020.
The wastes generated during the olive oil extraction process, even if presenting
a negative impact for the environment, contain several bioactive compounds
that have considerable health benefits. After suitable extraction and purification,
these compounds can be used as food antioxidants or as active ingredients in
nutraceutical and cosmetic products due to their interesting technological and
pharmaceutical properties. The aim of this review, after presenting general applications
of the different types of wastes generated from this industry, is to focus
on the olive pomace produced by the two-phase system and to explore the challenging
applications of the main individual compounds present in this waste.
Hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol, oleuropein, oleuropein aglycone, and verbascoside are
the most abundant bioactive compounds present in olive pomace. Besides their
antioxidant activity, these compounds also demonstrated other biological properties
such as antimicrobial, anticancer, or anti-inflammatory, thus being used
in formulations to produce pharmaceutical and cosmetic products or in the fortification
of food. Nevertheless, it is mandatory to involve both industries and
researchers to create strategies to valorize these byproducts while maintaining
environmental sustainability.
