A novel method for simultaneous degumming and deacidification of corn oil by miscella refining in one step

Abstract

In order to overcome the issues (losses of neutral oil and trace nutrients, waste discharge and great energy consumption) in the traditional degumming and deacidification processes of corn oil, a new refining process using alkali aqueous solution was developed. The miscella of corn oil was used to investigate the effect of the refining process on acid value and phosphorus content of corn oil. Results showed that phospholipids and free fatty acids can be simultaneously successfully removed using this one step method. Under the optimized conditions (50 g/100g miscella oil concentration, 30 g/100g excess alkali, 10 °Bé alkali concentration and 150 rpm at 50 °C for 60 min), the phosphorus content and acid value of corn oil can be decreased from 587.57 ± 10.32 mg/kg and 5.13 ± 0.51 mgKOH/g to 5.79 ± 1.49 mg/kg and 0.10 mgKOH/g, respectively. High oil yield (95.3 g/100g) was achieved at low temperature (50 °C). The washing process was saved and no waste water was formed in this method.