Abstract
Adsorption is one commonly used technique for treatment of sunflower oil. In this study, activated carbon and bleaching earth as a bleaching agent mixed with certain proportions and1% of the mixture added to sunflower oil in the bleaching process. The combination of bleaching earth and activated carbon produced higher adsorption capacity than the single bleaching earth. This article focuses more particularly on heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) removal. It was detected that, the mixture is an excellent adsorbent in the adsorption of PAHs and metals from sunflower oil with the highest adsorption capacity. The results showed that, the adsorption of metals and PAHs depend strongly on activated carbon and decreased with increasing activated carbonin mixture and the maximum adsorption was reached after using B5 (95 % bleaching earth and 5 % activated carbon combination).
Highlights
Most vegetable oils are obtained from the seeds and fruits of plants
Heavy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are eliminated by the deodorization step, whereas light ones are eliminated when treated with activated carbon during the bleaching step
The changes in the amount of PAHs depending on the adsorbents are reported in the Table 1.The bleaching using bleaching earth sample (A2) shows that there was no significant change in the removal of PAHs
Summary
Most vegetable oils are obtained from the seeds and fruits of plants. Vegetable oils are eaten directly and used in the production of margarines, frying oils and other edible products in food industry. Carotenoids and chlorophylls give sunflower oil light-amber color, turning to pale yellow upon the bleaching process [1]. The aim ofrefining process is to remove colored particles, phosphatides, tracemetals, and free fatty acids which may produce oxidation products leading to decomposition [2]. Among these stages, bleaching is the most critical process; it helps to improve the flavor, taste, appearance and stability of the vegetable oil [5]. Bleaching stage is designed to remove pigments, and other impurities such as soaps, phosphatides and free fatty acids. The main method of bleaching is adsorption of the coloring substances on adsorbents.In vegetable oil industry, factories usually use acid activated bleaching earth (bentonite), natural bleaching earth, activated carbon and synthetic silicates [6, 7]
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