Supercritical alcoholysis of sunflower wet sludge to produce fatty esters

T. SORIA; A. VELEZ; G. MABE; P. HEGEL; S. PEREDA

La Haya

Conferencia; 13th European Meeting on Supercritical Fluids (ISASF 2011); 2011

In the last decade the production of soybean and sunflower oil has greatly increased worldwide. Together with it, the market of the oil refining by-products (phospholipids sludge and distillates of the deodorizer) is rapidly changing. Even though these residues contain high-added value products, their cost are decreasing, becoming sometimes a waste with disposal associated problems. Particularly, soy oil has a high concentration of phospholipids, thus an important volume of sludge (also called gums) is being produced. Sunflower oil gums contains approximately 45% water, 25% oil and 30% phospholipids. These are mainly used as ingredient for animal food, but soy gums are of low quality due to its low nutritive value (high water content) compare to gums derived from other vegetable oils. Moreover, gum processing to recover oil or phospholipids is complicated because of its high viscosity and poor fluid properties. Thus, the processes in general require high amount of solvent becoming expensive and contaminant.