Researchers find a way to extract oil loaded with the vitamin from canola seeds using only carbon dioxide and water
For now, canola seed is crushed and turned into canola oil and meal.
The markets for the meal and oil are global and substantial, worth billions of dollars. But there are interesting fractions and components inside the canola seed that could add billions more to the value of canola.
One of them is vitamin E.
Scientists with Agriculture Canada and the University of Manitoba have devised a new process to extract oil loaded with vitamin E from canola seeds. The process preserves more than 90 percent of the natural vitamin E in canola seeds and the oil has 10 times more vitamin E than canola oil produced by traditional methods.
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As well, the process relies only on carbon dioxide and water.
”So, there is no chemical residue in natural vitamin E-rich oil,” said John Shi, a processing expert with Agriculture Canada in Guelph, Ont. “(And) operating temperature and pressure is in low condition, (making it) ‘green’ processing technology.”
A canola oil with a concentrated level of vitamin E may open up new markets for the canola sector. Vitamin E is a popular health supplement important for vision, reproduction, and the health of blood, brain and skin, according to mayoclinic.com.
And it has properties of an anti-oxidant, which protects cells against free radicals.
The commercial methods of extracting oil from canola seed, like using organic solvents, removes much of the vitamin E from the oil. The same is true of the expeller process that doesn’t use any solvent.
“The refining processes such as degumming, neutralization and dewaxing under high temperature (are) time consuming and costly energy,” Shi explained in an email. “(Much) natural vitamin E is degraded in (the) refining process.”
Instead, Shi uses a process called supercritical carbon dioxide extraction.
“To use low temperature and low pressure in order to reduce operating cost,” he said. “The ‘green’ process (only uses) CO2 and water mixture as extracting solvent… and (the) technology promotes sustainable agri-food and agriculture development.”
The technology isn’t yet ready for prime time because Shi has been working with small batches of one to two litres.
The scientists are in discussions with an Alberta company to test the technology on a larger scale.
“You’d really need to be looking at 100 or 500 litre vessels… in order to demonstrate that you can do it at scale,” said Martin Scanlon, a food scientist and dean of agriculture at the University of Manitoba and one of the researchers who worked on the project.
“We’re in negotiations with this company to see if it (can) be scaled up.”
If it works out, there should be strong demand for natural vitamin E from canola oil because many vitamin E supplements are synthetic and made from petroleum products.
The opportunity for the process, devised by Shi and others, could be much larger than canola oil that’s rich in vitamin E.
The dairy sector has developed ways to separate or fractionate milk into ingredients for the food sector. That market is large and getting larger.
Global Markets Insights estimates the market for milk fat fractions, used in bakery products, candy and chocolate products, is expected to hit US$18.4 billion by 2028.
“If you look at the dairy industry… there are a whole plethora of industries (around) slicing and dicing milk,” Scanlon said.
“I think that potential exists for plant-based products as well…. I think they’re behind what is happening in the dairy industry.”
Scanlon made it clear that this research isn’t about replacing the current methods for producing canola oil.
“The canola crushing industry, with hexane extraction, it’s very effective at generating the canola oil and then… the meal for various uses.”
The focus is on environmentally friendly ways to process Canadian crops and open new markets for the ag sector.
It might be possible to use Shi’s process to extract all sorts of intriguing nutrients and anti-oxidants from canola, flaxseed and other oilseeds.
