Fractionation of anhydrous milk fat by short‐path distillation

Abstract

Anhydrous milk fat was fractionated by short‐path distillation into four fractions at temperatures of 245 and 265 C and pressures of 220 and 100 μm Hg. Two fractions (LF1 and LF2) were liquid, one fraction (IF) was semi‐solid and one fraction (SF) was solid at room temperature. The fractions were characterized by melting temperature profile, solid fat index and triglyceride and fatty acid compositions. The peak melting temperature progressively increased (8.8 to 38.7 C) from liquid to solid fractions. The solid fat content ranged from 0 to 27.5% at 20 C, while native milk fat was 15.4%. The short chain (C24–C34) triglycerides were enriched in the LF1 fraction, long chain (C42–C54) triglycerides were concentrated in the SF fraction, and medium chain (C36–C40) triglycerides in the IF fraction; in the LF2 fraction, though, both short and medium chain triglycerides were enriched. Short chain (C4–C8) fatty acids gradually decreased from liquid to solid fractions and the trend was reverse for long chain (C14–C18) fatty acids, both saturated and unsaturated. The weight average molecular weights and geometric mean‐carbon number of milk fat fractions were in the range of 590.7–782.8 and 31.9–46.3, respectively, compared to 729.3 and 41.0, respectively, for native milk fat, suggesting short‐path distillation effects a very high degree of molecular weight separation.

Increasing short‐chain fatty acid yield during lipase hydrolysis of a butterfat fraction with periodic aqueous extraction

“…One potential method of increasing the SCFFA concentration would be to raise the amount of short-chain, low-molecular-weight compounds in the TAG substrate. Such a substrate can be produced from butterfat by short-path distillation (7). Thus, one of the goals of this work is to determine if substrate alterations can increase the total concentration of desirable SCFFA in hydrolyzed butterfat.…”

Fractionation of urea‐pretreated squid visceral oil ethyl esters

“…Material is distilled at high vacuum in an apparatus constructed in such a way that the distance traveled by the molecules between the evaporating and condensing surfaces is shorter than their mean free path (11). This technology has been applied to the fractionation of milk fat (12) and reduction of cholesterol in butter (13).…”

Rapid Analysis of Acylglycerols in Low Molecular Weight Milk Fat Fractions

“…Fractionation of MF by SPD enriches the distillate fraction not only with low-MW TAG, but also with the minor components (viz. cholesterol, MAG, DAG and FFA) that have similar MW [8,[11][12][13][14]. Since low-MW TAG and DAG have similar retention times, their peaks overlap in the resulting gas chromatogram making their simultaneous analysis by GC-FID impractical [15].…”

“…Milk fat contains many compounds with novel functionality (e.g. short-chain fatty acids) [4][5][6][7], and industrialscale short-path distillation (SPD) is a popular technique for their separation and purification [8][9][10]. The development, optimization and control of a commercial MF SPD system requires an analysis technique that is fast, accurate and economical.…”