Novel sustainable extraction of vegetable oils with simultaneous heavy metal and anti-nutrient removal capability.

The accumulation of heavy metals (HMs) in oilseeds presents a serious risk to food safety, emphasizing the necessity of developing effective methods for producing safe vegetable oils and oilseed meals. This study proposed a biphasic system consisting of methanol, water, and additives as the polar phase and n-hexane as the nonpolar phase to simultaneously extract vegetable oils while removing HMs and anti-nutrients from oilseeds. Results indicated that the optimal oil extraction time for the four oilseeds was 180 min. The highest HMs removal rate of 64.3 % was achieved using 0.5 % HCl as an additive. The extracted vegetable oils met both Chinese and international standards for HMs content and adhered to Chinese standards for fatty acid composition ratios. The biphasic system decreased surface functional groups in the oilseed meal by 58.8-75.0 %. The oilseed meal retained all its proteins, while glucosinolate and phytic acid contents decreased by 86.8 % and 81.2 %, respectively. The flocculation and precipitation method successfully recovered 95.9 %-99.6 % of HMs and 44.2 %-92.8 % of anions, ensuring that the treated polar phase complied with China's surface water quality standards. Consequently, 82.7 % of the polar phase and 66.7 % of the nonpolar phase were efficiently recovered and reused, significantly reducing operational costs. The biphasic system maintained high efficiency in oil extraction and HMs removal during the second cycle. Collectively, the biphasic system provided a sustainable and innovative approach for the simultaneous safe production of vegetable oils and oilseed meals.