The objective was to evaluate the performance of four hydro-alcoholic solvents to simultaneously extract oil and more polar molecules as phenolics, among others, to produce complex extracts that eventually could self-emulsify after solvent removal. Walnut press-cake was selected as the sourcing material. Extractions were performed as a semi-continuous operation up to a solvent-to-solid ratio of 28, with a fractional collection of the effluent. Among the solvents, labelled by their alcohol content EtOH 58, EtOH 86, iPro 60 and iPro 90 for ethanol (EtOH) and isopropanol (iPro), iPro 90 allowed to reach an oil extraction efficiency of 97% while the recovery for the other solvents was in the range of 30–40%. For both alcohols, the increase of the solvent hydration negatively influenced the oil extraction but positively increased the recovery of phenolics that reached 17.6 mg GAE/g_cake when EtOH 58 was used. Several fractions contained enough surface-active material and oil to self-assemble as emulsions. IPro 90 and EtOH 86 showed better performances in the sense that most extracts were able to emulsify, though extraction kinetics pointed out differences. The most hydrated solvents behaved equally, with extraction yields in the same range and a similar but limited emulsifying capacity of only few fractions.

Effect of environmental factors and cultivar on linseed composition and subsequent oil expression has been studied. Ten linseed cultivars were grown in two different location (north and south of France) during years 2011, 2012 and 2013. Every year have been characterized in terms of pluviometry, sunshine hours and degree days, each climatic factor has been cumulated from flowering to harvest. A strong impact of cultivar on oil, C18:3 and starch content has been noticed whereas the growing location has only affected the starch and lipid contents. Year effect have been recorded on proteins, oil and C18:3 content. A principal component analysis has highlighted the correlation between the pluviometry and the C18:3 content. Oil content have not presented any correlation with environmental or composition factors. Oil expression using the seeds previously characterized has exhibited a strong correlation between C18:3 content and oil yield. No correlation between oil yield and other composition parameters has been observed. The analysis of variance conducted on yield has emphasized that yield variation was majority attributable to a year effect.