The seed of Zanthoxylum bungeanum (Z. bungeanum) is a by-product of pepper production and rich in unsaturated fatty acid, cellulose, and protein. The seed oil obtained from traditional producing process by squeezing or extracting would be bad quality and could not be used as edible oil. In this paper, a new preparation method of Z. bungeanum seed kernel oil (ZSKO) was developed by comparing the advantages and disadvantages of alkali saponification-cold squeezing, alkali saponification-solvent extraction, and alkali saponification-supercritical fluid extraction with carbon dioxide (SFE-CO2). The results showed that the alkali saponification-cold squeezing could be the optimal preparation method of ZSKO, which contained the following steps: Z. bungeanum seed was pretreated by alkali saponification under the conditions of adding 10 %NaOH (w/w), solution temperature was 80 °C, and saponification reaction time was 45 min, and pretreated seed was separated by filtering, water washing, and overnight drying at 50 °C, then repeated squeezing was taken until no oil generated at 60 °C with 15 % moisture content, and ZSKO was attained finally using centrifuge. The produced ZSKO contained more than 90 % unsaturated fatty acids and no trans-fatty acids and be testified as a good edible oil with low-value level of acid and peroxide. It was demonstrated that the alkali saponification-cold squeezing process could be scaled up and applied to industrialized production of ZSKO.
Keywords: Alkali saponification; Cold squeezing; Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs); Trans-fatty acids; Zanthoxylum bungeanum seed kernel oil (ZSKO).