Simulation and thermodynamic modeling of the extraction of tocopherol from a synthetic mixture of tocopherol, squalene and CO2

Soybean oil is the most consumed vegetable oil in the world, representing 54% of the total world production. Brazil is the second country in the world that produces and export soybean seeds, almost 20%. One of the most important by-product of the soybean oil is the deodorizer distillate, commonly known as soybean sludge. This residue is rich in many high value compounds as tocopherols, squalene and sterols. Tocopherols are the major components in the deodorized distillated due to their characteristics as an antioxidant agent. So, the objective of this work is to study the concentration of tocopherols presented in this raw material, using the operational conditions obtained from the equilibrium data and using supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent. The deodorizer distillate is a complex mixture of more than 200 components, so a synthetic mixture was chosen to represent the deodorizer distillate. The synthetic mixture used in this work is composed by tocopherols, fatty acids and squalene. The simulation was carried out using ASPEN+ simulator and the LCVM thermodynamic model was used to correlate the available equilibrium data.