The Fats and Oils Program focuses on improving yields and quality of oils from refining operations, modification of oil properties, and applications in food products. The staff has experience with soybean, cottonseed, corn, canola, rapeseed, and various industrial oils.
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Upcoming Short Courses |
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May 11 - 14 , 2008
October 26 - 30, 2008
Trends in Margarine and Shortening Manufacture. Non-Trans Products Registration Coming Soon |
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RESEARCH and DEVELOPMENT SERVICES
The Fats and Oils Program conducts contract and sponsored research at bench top and pilot plant scales in the following areas:
- Caustic Refining . Conventional and modified fatty acid removal by neutralization. Modified refining to protect antioxidants.
- Adsorptive Refining . Non-chemical removal of free fatty acids and other impurities from crude oil.
- Bleaching . Conventional bleaching with neutral and acid-activated catalysts. Modified bleaching to produced polar-free oils for specialty applications.
- Hydrogenating . Conventional hydrogenation to produce highly stable frying oils and shortenings. Hydrogenation with precious metals for the production of low- in-trans fats and oils.
- Deodorization . High vacuum deodorizing and physical refining using steam stripping or inert gas sparging.
- Interesterification of Fats and Oils , chemical and enzymatic, for the production of specialty products such as trans free fats and oils for margarines and shortenings and nutritionally enhanced fats and oils products. Esterification of nutraceuticals.
- Crystallization/Fractionation . Chill fractionation of fats and oils for the removal of saturates and waxes.
- Molecular Distillation . Deodorizing of heat labile products and the recovery and purification of nutraceuticals such as tocopherols and stanols.
- Margarine and Shortening Manufacture . Conventional stick and tub spreads. Manufacture of low fat, trans free and nutritional supplemented products.
- Lecithin processing and applications
- Preparation of mono- and diglycerides, rearranged and customized triglycerides.
- Soapstock, spent bleaching clay, hydrogenation catalyst, deodorizer distillate handling
ANALYTICAL SERVICES
Our Analytical lab is approved by the American Oils Chemists' Society and its capabilities include basic analysis such: Metal content (P, Ca, Mg, Fe, Cu, Ni), Soaps, p-Anisidine value, Free fatty acids, Color, Peroxide value, Saponification Value, Cloud test, Solid Fat content by NMR, Iodine value, Tocopherols content, AOM/OSI test, smoke point, flavor and odor.
Advanced Fats and Oils Analyses capabilities include: Fatty acid profiles, Triglyceride profiles, Lecithin composition and profiles, tocopherol composition, plant sterol profiles, gossypol analysis, mono- and di-glyceride composition, fatty ester composition.
SPECIALTY OILS RESEARCH
The specialty oils is one of the fastest growing fields in the in the fats and oils industry. Our program is developing several processes to recover and purify these specialty oils. These products require processing to minimize losses of valuable components in the oil. The Fats and Oils (FAO) program has devised several modified processing that involve minimal chemical treatment for the processing of specialty oils with minimal loss of tocopherols for example. Also FAO can process oils without the use of chemicals to permit labeling of "All Natural" products. The following are some examples of specialty oils that have been successfully processed at our facilities:
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