Análise comparativa do teor de óleo na borra em diferentes processos de refino do óleo bruto de soja

Abstract

The soybean processing industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the Brazilian agricultural sector. The growing usage of their products and by-products demands innovation and updates in the process, aiming to reduce drag losses and to find better utilization of the residue of the crude soybean oil refining process. An improvement in the refining process is to use enzymes as biological catalysts to emulsify the vegetable oil and to facilitate the phospholipids division during centrifugation. In this case study, three different refining methods used in two soybean processing plants (plant A and plant B) were analyzed. In the first process, the soapstock is removed through alkali neutralization and used in plant B. However, this method presented unsatisfactory results related to the dragging of neutral oil in the soapstock, resulting in oil losses around 15% above the ideal value established by the company in the analysis– which is 32% of neutral oil content in the soapstock. The second method uses chemical degumming and water degumming and is used in plant A. In this case, high values above the ideal were also observed, reaching an average of 35.14% of oil content in the soapstock related to the last quarter of 2022. Finally, the third method combines water degumming and enzymatic degumming, and it is also used in plant A, presenting an average value of oil content in the soapstock of 28.71%, according to the patterns established by the literature and the company. The application of soapstock in the pelleted soybean meal was also analyzed and was observed appropriate protein values to plant A, above the established by legislation. Furthermore, the soapstock from plant A that uses the degumming processes showed better nutritional qualities, identified in the analysis of quality parameters of the soybean meal.