How to Reduce Nutritional Losses of Fats and Oils in Corn Oil Refining Processes
Corn oil is a by-product of corn deep processing, the extraction process is relatively simple and the production cost is relatively low. Corn oil has the advantages of easy to be digested and absorbed by the human body, less accumulation of fat and cholesterol in the body, etc. It has become the edible oil favored by consumers, with great development potential, and many oil factories have started to invest in the construction of corn oil processing plants.
Corn oil processing starts from extracting corn germ, after extracting corn germ, purifying and drying the germ, pressing and leaching to get the gross oil, and the gross oil is refined to separate the impurities to get the finished oil. The whole process is relatively mature, and the corn oil can reach the national standard.
With the continuous improvement of people's living standard, consumers gradually realize the important role of nutrients in the accompanying fats and oils, and the problem of over-processing of fats and oils has been paid attention to gradually. Over-refined oil directly reduces the nutritional value of edible oil and increases the consumption of resources and energy. However, unrefined crude oil contains too many impurities, is easily cloudy at low temperatures, and emits a pungent odor, making it impossible to consume directly and requiring multiple refining processes. Therefore, moderate processing has become an urgent problem for oil factories.
The traditional process is to deacidify, degum, decolorize, deodorize and filter the gross corn oil to get refined oil. Corn oil has a high content of phytosterols, and vitamin E is a fat-soluble vitamin, also known as tocopherol, which is one of the important antioxidants. Since the quality of the raw oil is different in each batch, the loss rate of nutrients caused by processing with fixed refining process parameters is also different, so it is important to find reasonable process parameters to reduce the loss rate of nutrients under the conditions of tailored refining process art parameters.
Take the decolorization section as an example, the purpose of decolorization is to make the decolorized oil improve in color and luster, not theoretically remove all the pigments in the oil, decolorization not only separates the pigments, but also separates other impurities, such as residual soap, trace metals, peroxides and phospholipids. Decolorization of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, mycotoxins, plasticizers and other harmful substances have a good separation effect. The decolorization stage should be considered comprehensively, including the cost, the characteristics of corn oil, the elimination and growth of harmful substances and nutrients, and combined with the industry's situation on the amount of white clay, activity, acidity and the type of white clay, such as the appropriate matching of the factors of processing.
The traditional stage of crude oil decolorization is mainly to add active white earth to crude oil. Relevant research shows that putting corn oil into vacuum deodorization tanks can use activated carbon to simultaneously carry out triple processing of deodorization, dehydration and decolorization, greatly improving product quality. The decolorization of activated carbon as an adsorbent avoids the pungent odor brought about by the initial use of clay and improves the odor of the oil. It also avoids the cumbersome process of waste clay disposal. The used waste activated carbon can still be used as fuel. Compared with the traditional process, it simplifies many processes, not only reduces the process flow, but also reduces the cost, which is trustworthy for oil plants.
