Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) and high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) team up to recover olive waste antioxidants. Marina Russo of the University of Messina (Italy) discusses the details.
Olive trees produce a lot more than olives. Every time farmers prune their trees, they are left with piles of leaves and branches that usually just get burned for fuel or thrown away. But it turns out that waste is actually packed with valuable, health-boosting compounds, things like antioxidants, vitamin E-related molecules, and pigments called carotenoids, that could be put to much better use.
