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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #110684
Title: SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE FRACTIONATION OF CRUDE RICE BRAN OIL DEODORIZER DISTILLATE AND PHYTOSTEROL CONTENT OF THE FRACTIONS

Author
item Dunford, Nurhan
item King, Jerry

Submitted to: Annual Meeting and Expo of the American Oil Chemists' Society
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/25/2000
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The potential of rice bran oil as a nutraceutical source has increased significantly during the last decade due to new research findings which show that rice bran oil reduces serum cholesterol levels significantly both in animals and humans. A significant portion of the sterols in the crude oil is removed during the conventional oil refining processes and concentrated in the deodorizer distillate and soapstock. This makes deodorizer distillates an attractive raw material for value-added processing and recovery of valuable components such as phytosterols. Application of supercritical (SC) fluid technology to phytosterol recovery from rice bran oil deodorizer distillate has not been studied. The objective of this study was to obtain sterol enriched fractions from rice bran deodorizer distillate utilizing supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2). Rice bran deodorizer distillate, which was received from a commercial oil processor, was used as starting material for the fractionation experiments An automated supercritical fluid extraction apparatus was used to screen for favorable processing conditions for efficient phytosterol recovery. The effects of temperature, pressure and ethanol percentage in the SC-CO2 phase on the phytosterol content of the fractions were examined. Larger scale fractionation tests were performed in a 1.65 m X 1.43 cm i.d. packed column. Recovered oil fractions had significantly lower free fatty acid (FFA) (2%), higher triglyceride (TG) (>75%) and phytosterol (>15%) contents than those of the feed rice bran deodorizer distillate (40% FFA, 10% TG and 12 % phytosterols). The fractionation characteristics of SC-CO2 on rice bran and soybean oil deodorizer distillates were compared.