Methods for reducing soap formation during vegetable oil refining
OwnerOleg Kozyuk, Peter Reimersinventors
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Abstract
A method for refining vegetable oil is used to reduce formation of soaps. An acid-treated vegetable oil mixture is passed through a low shear mixing device prior to being fed to an static hydrodynamic reactor. The static hydrodynamic reactor induces a neutralization reaction that forms soaps in a pressurized vegetable oil mixture. The reacted mixture is discharged from the reactor to a downstream system for separating the formed soaps from the reacted mixture to form a refined vegetable oil having reduced soaps content.
Claims20
A method for reducing soap formation during refining of a vegetable oil, the method comprising:
- a. mixing an acid-treated vegetable oil with a base to neutralize free fatty acid and acid in the acid-treated vegetable oil to form a pretreated mixture;
- b. passing the pretreated mixture through a low-shear pump to increase pressure in the pretreated mixture to form a pressurized pretreated mixture;
- and
- c. passing the pressurized pretreated mixture through a static hydrodynamic reactor to induce a neutralization reaction in the pressurized pretreated mixture.
A method for reducing soap formation during refining of a vegetable oil, the method comprising:
- a. mixing an acid-treated vegetable oil with a base to neutralize free fatty acid and acid in the acid-treated vegetable oil to form a pretreated mixture;
- b. passing the pretreated mixture through a low-shear pressurizing device to increase pressure in the pretreated mixture to form a pressurized pretreated mixture;
- c. forming a reacted mixture by passing the pressurized pretreated mixture through a two or more local constrictions in series, each local constriction generates cavitation in the pressurized pretreated mixture to induce a neutralization reaction in the pressurized pretreated mixture, the neutralization reaction forms soaps in the pressurized pretreated mixture;
- d. adding water to the reacted mixture;
- and
- e. separating the soaps from the reacted mixture to form a refined vegetable oil, the refined vegetable oil comprising less than 200 ppm of the soaps.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.