title: Optimization of distilled monoglycerides production.
abstract: Monoglycerides (MG) are emulsifiers widely used in food and pharmaceutical industries. Current industrial processes for MG production consist of the interesterification of triglycerides with glycerol (GL), in the presence of inorganic catalysts at high temperatures (> 200 degrees C). This reaction is known as glycerolysis and produces a mixture of approx 50% of MG. This level of concentration is suitable for many applications, although, for some specific uses like margarine, shortening, icing, and cream filling, require distilled MGs, which are purified MG (min. 90%) obtained by the molecular distillation process. Therefore, in this work, a 23 factorial design was employed to evaluate the effects of reaction parameters in the MG content after the interesterification reaction of refined soybean oil with GL in the presence of sodium hydroxide as catalyst. After that, the MG content in the reaction product was enhanced through the molecular distillation process in order to obtain distilled MG.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Separation Process Development (LDPS) School of Chemical Engineering, UNICAMP CP 6066-CEP 13081-970-Campinas, SP, Brazil. leonardo@feq.unicamp.br
authors.forename: Leonardo Vasconcelos
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Fregolente
authors.forename: César Benedito
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Batistella
authors.forename: Rubens
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Maciel Filho
authors.forename: Maria Regina Wolf
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Maciel
mesh_terms: D019149:Bioreactors; D005591:Chemical Fractionation / Q000379:methods*; D005511:Food Handling / Q000379:methods*; D006358:Hot Temperature; D050178:Monoglycerides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D013024:Soybean Oil / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D050178:Monoglycerides; D013024:Soybean Oil