Simultaneous recovery of wax and oil from rice bran by filtration‐extraction

Abstract

SummaryHard rice waxes of high melting points have been obtained directly from rice bran while simultaneously producing oil. These waxes were produced by the following two methods. 1. selective cold hexane‐extraction of cooked rice bran to remove the oil, hot hexane‐extraction to remove the wax, chilling of the hot miscella and separation of the precipitated wax by centrifugation; 2. single hot hexane‐extraction of raw or cooked rice bran, hot water washing and chilling of the miscella, separation of the wax precipitate by settling or centrifugation, and multiple cold hexane‐washings of the wax. Wax can also be processed from rice oil settlings by the latter method after a miscella has been prepared. The cold extraction‐hot extraction method should be preferable as a process when conducted on a single continuous filtration‐extraction unit without reslurrying. Indications are that oil refining losses may be decreased by this method. Yields of rice wax varied from 0.22 to 0.31% of the original rice bran, or 1.29 to 1.82% of the extracted oil.