Industrially oil is produced from seeds after crushing, cooking, solid-liquid expression and eventually a solvent extraction step. The objective of this study is to extract the oil from linseed (40 % oil) with an aqueous process in which organic solvent use would be excluded.
After solid-liquid expression, the press-cake was crushed and mixed with demineralized water in cake/water ratio of 1/10. High voltage electrical discharges (HVED) (40 kV, 10 kA, 3 µs) were applied to this mixture at a frequency of 0.5 Hertz. The HVED consumed energy was calculated from electrical voltage and current curves. The measurements of electrical conductivity, Brix, pH and viscosity of the liquid phase allowed to characterize the kinetic of cake extraction at different intensities of electric field
