Microwave heating and gamma-irradiation treatment of rapeseed (Brassica napus)

Rapeseeds were treated with different doses of gamma -irradiation and micro wave heating of oil extraction. Improvement of the oil extractivity was ach ieved after microwave treatment while the quality parameters of crude oil w ere not significantly changed except the total phosphorus content, which wa s nearly four times higher compared to that of the control. It seems that m icrowave treatment damages membranes and thus higher amounts of phospholipi ds may be released into the crude oil. Microwave heating also resulted in a reduction of enzyme activities and lower protein content in buffered seed extracts due to partial protein denaturation. The differences in protein pr ofiles of treated and untreated seeds were also demonstrated by SDS PAGE. T he protein denaturation was observed for all types of proteins. gamma -irra diation had practically no effect on the oil quality parameters and did not change its yield.