Preparation of high purity squalene from soybean oil deodorizer distillate with the combination of macroporous resin and thin-film evaporation coupling distillation

ABSTRACT

In this study, the combination of macroporous adsorbent resins (MARs) and thin-film evaporation coupling distillation (TFECD) was studied systematically, with aim to obtain high value-added squalene from soybean oil deodorizer distillate (SODD). Five types of resins (X-5, D-101, D4020, DM301, and AB-8) were first used to evaluate the adsorption/desorption properties of squalene. D101 resin exhibited higher adsorption/desorption capacities and desorption ratios for squalene based on static adsorption results among the tested resins. We further investigated the adsorption kinetics, isotherms, and thermodynamics with D101 resin as adsorbent. The adsorption of squalene on D101 was best fitted to pseudo-second-order kinetic model and the Langmuir equation. The dynamic adsorption and desorption indicated that similar results were observed in the static adsorption test. The purity of squalene was increased from 7.5 to 82.5% with the recovery up to 88.5% after separation on D101 column. The resin-refined sample was directly subjected to TFECD purification. Under optimized process parameters, the final product with purity of 98.5% and recovery yield of 76.5% was confirmed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis. The present study provided an effective method for large-scale production of high purity squalene.