Comparative pilot-scale countercurrent extraction of Soybean with 2-methyloxolane and hexane

This study presents a Design of Experiment focused on the extraction of soybean oil with 2-methyloxolane (2-MeOx) in a semi-industrial continuous multistage countercurrent extractor (Model IV Crown Iron Extractor). 2-MeOx is a biobased solvent that was added to the list of permitted solvents for food production in Europe in January 2023. In this trial, Hexane was taken as the reference solvent because it is widely used in the extraction industry. 2-MeOx was able to extract an oil fraction that was inaccessible to hexane. This led to a lower residual oil content in the meal extracted with 2-MeOx (0.48 vs 1.94 g oil/100 g meal for hexane). Compared with hexane, 2-MeOx yielded an oil richer in phenolic compounds (3229.7 vs 145.5 mg GAE/kg oil), with higher oxidative stability ( >70 vs 17.8 h) and improved unsaponifiable matter (0.63 vs 0.43% w/w).  In addition, there was a higher protein dispersibility index (PDI) (55.35 vs 40.84%) and higher protein solubility in KOH solution (94.14 vs 84.79%) observed with 2-MeOx compared to hexane-extracted meal. The presentation will detail the trial conditions and results as well as assessing the scale-up potential of this experiment.