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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #119009
Title: PHYTOSTEROL-ENRICHED TRIGLYCERIDE FRACTIONS FROM VEGETABLE OIL DEODORIZER DISTILLATES UTILIZING SUPERCRITICAL FLUID FRACTINATION TECHNOLOGY

Author
item King, Jerry
item Dunford, Nurhan

Submitted to: Separation Science and Technology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/12/2001
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Vegetable oils contain small amounts of natural products which can promote human health, such phytosterols in rice bran and soybean oil. However, the small amounts of these compounds in the oils limits their effectiveness as well as use in certain food compositions. In this study, an environmentally-benign method known as supercritical fluid fractionation has been applied to enrich these components from the starting material. The method is simpler than existing methods for phytosterol enrichment and yields a product with no contaminating solvent. Since an industrial by-product is used as the starting material, the process can be used to produce value-added products from a relatively inexpensive starting material.

Technical Abstract: Supercritical fluid fractionation (SFF) technology has been applied as an alternative method to recover phytosterol (St) enriched triglyceride (TG) fractions from vegetable oil deodorizer distillates (DD). Utilizing a pilot scale high pressure packed column, it was possible to obtain oil fractions with 20 and 31 % St, 38 and 30 % TG, from rice bran and soybean oil DD, respectively. In this study, the contact area between solvent (supercritical CO2) and solute and solvent residence time in the extractor were two important parameters affecting the efficiency of the separation. A two-step SFF method was developed to obtain low free fatty acid and high TG and St content oil fractions from rice bran and soybean oil DD.