Valorization of olive mill leaves through ultrasound-assisted extraction

Olive leaves farmed from trees are valuable for the production of functional extracts. Nonetheless, olive leaves (containing thin branches), which are separated during olives cleaning in the mill, have received little attention. In this context, a multiple response optimization was performed to maximize at once the yield, total phenolic content, oleouropein and antioxidant activity obtained by ultrasound-assisted extraction of this low-cost by-product. The optimum was achieved using the following operational parameters: solid-to-liquid ratio, 5.9%; ethanol concentration, 47%; extraction time, 50 min. This enabled to obtain an extract with both high level of oleuropein and antioxidant activity. Besides oleuropein, other minor phenolic compounds were characterized in the extract, which could contribute to the antioxidant activity as Pearson correlation suggested. After this extraction step, how the phenolic extraction affects the recovery/profile of other constituents was evaluated, looking for the integral valorization of this resource towards the zero-waste.