Deacidification of Fatty Oils using Anion Exchange Resin

Abstract

Crude fatty oils contain a large number of impurities, including gum, free fatty acids, and coloring substances that must be removed in order to create an acceptables refined oil. This paper describes method to deacidify three fatty oils by adsorbing their free fatty acid contents on Rohm and Haas Amberlite IRA 900 anion exchange resin in a fixed bed adsorber. After deacidification, their acid values are lower than 0.6 and the color are brighter. By combining the three steps regeneration method, the resin can be re-utilized without losing its adsorption capacity for 3 cycles.