Abstract: The aqueous enzymatic extraction of safflower oil was optimized using factional factorial design and response surface methodology. The effects of processing parameters, including enzyme type and combinations, material to liquid ratio, total enzyme dosage, hydrolysis time, temperature and pH on oil yield were investigated. Results showed that a mixture of xylanase (UTC-X50), pectinase (NCB3/ZG-040) and alkaline protease (NCB3/ZG-002) (1:2:3, U/U) was the most efficient for the extraction of safflower oil and the optimum enzyme dosage was 197.36 U/g. The maximum yield of 84.68% was obtained after sequential hydrolysis with both xylanase and pectinase for 131 min at pH 4.2 and 50 ℃ with a material/liquid ratio 1:4, followed by alkaline protease at pH 9.8 and 40 ℃ for 60 min. Gas chromatography analysis revealed that the fatty acid profile of safflower oil obtained under the optimized conditions contained 78.27% linoleic acid, 12.61% oleic acid and 0.10% linolenic acid.

Key words: safflower oil, aqueous enzymatic method, response?surface?methodology, fatty acid