*2.2. Pecan Nuts*

Kernel halves of dry pecan nuts (*Carya illinoinensis*) from Alesto brand were purchased in a local market in Lleida (Spain). In this study, dry kernels were separated in three experimental groups comparing PEF-treated kernels against reference and control kernels. No soaking nor PEF processing was performed on reference kernels, while control kernels were placed in tap water (1:3 *w*/*w*) for 3, 20 and 35 min to assess the effect of soaking at each PEF pretreatment. Kernels pretreated by PEF were immersed in tap water and processed. After a 10 min draining, control and PEF-treated kernels (1.0 g) were separated for moisture and microstructural analysis. Before freeze-drying, kernel samples (2.0 g) were taken for determination of lipoxygenase (LOX) activity. The remaining kernels were frozen ( −16 ◦C, 24 h), freeze-dried ( −50 ◦C, 1 mbar, 72 h), and stored at −40 ◦C until oil extraction.

### *2.3. Pulsed Electric Fields Application*

The application of PEF was performed in a batch-system using a 20 × 8 cm methacrylate container with stainless-steel parallel electrodes as the treatment chamber. The batchsystem was equipped with a 0.1 μF capacitator (Physics International, USA), a pulse generator (PT-55, Pacific Atlantic Electronics Inc., El Cerrito, CA, USA) and a TG-70 gas control unit. Based on a previous study [18], dry kernels were immersed in tap water (1:3 *w*/*w*) to apply 10, 99 and 192 monopolar exponential-wave pulses at an electric field strength of 5.0 kV/cm. These electrical conditions equaled to specific energy inputs of 0.8, 7.8 and 15.0 kJ per kg of pecan nut kernels in wet basis (*W*, kJ/kg wb), respectively.
