Fractionation of Sunflower Lecithin at different processing conditions

GUIOTTO. ESTEFANIA N.; CABEZAS. DARIO M.; TOMÁS, MABEL C.

California

Congreso; 103rd AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo.; 2012

AOCS

Sunflower lecithin is an important product in countries producing large amounts of crude sunflower oil. Due to its high phospholipids and essential fatty acid contents, it can be well utilized as an additive in food. A fractionation process of sunflower lecithin with different ethanol/water mixtures was carried out for obtaining enriched fractions in phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylinositol (PI). The effect of ethanol/water composition (90:10 to 96:4) and pH (1.2 ? 10.5) on the extraction efficiency was studied. Phospholipid enrichment and their composition in PC and PI fractions were determined by yield% and 31PNMR. The percent extraction coefficients for different phospholipids (%EPC, %EPE and %EPI) in both fractions were calculated. The increase of ethanol content and pH level produced the highest enriched PC fraction yield, %EPC and %EPE with mixtures 96:4 which increased significantly from 49.2 and 18.3% (pH 1.2) to 56.4 and 24.8% (pH 10.5), respectively. A high water content in the ethanolic mixture (90:10) resulted in a considerable decrease in PC and PE extraction; %EPC and EPE values varied from 39.3 and 11.3% (pH 1.2) to 48.2 and 15.2% (pH 9.2), respectively. %EPI values (< 4%) showed the high insolubility of PI.