Removal of copper from hydrogenated soybean oil

Hydrogenation with a copper-chromite catalyst at 170 C, 30 psi, increased the copper content of a refined, bleached soybean oil from 0.02 to as much as 3.8 ppm. Removing residual copper from soybean oil is essential to the successful use of copper catalysts for selective hydrogenation. Various methods were examined to remove this copper, including alkali refining, bleaching, acid washing, citric acid treatment and cation-exchange resin treatment. Properly conducted, each of the methods except alkali refining gives 95% or higher removal of copper introduced during hydrogenation. Ion exchange appears to be the most economical, but addition of about 0.01% citric acid during deodorization may be needed to inactivate traces of unremoved copper. Soybean oil hydrogenated with a copper-chromite catalyst, bleached or treated with an ion-exchange resin and deodorized with 0.01% citric acid added had low AOM peroxide values and acceptable flavor scores after eight days at 60 C which indicate that removal of residual copper from the oil should be adequate for the production of stable oils low in linolenic acid content.