Electrophoretic separation strategies for gentle fractionation of rapeseed

Summary

The use of plant-based food ingredients is crucial for reducing the environmental impact of the food processing. However, the plant materials are complex, containing nutritious and non-nutritious compounds. To extract valuable ingredients like oils and proteins, extensive purification is required. When extreme conditions such as elevated temperatures and toxic chemicals are used, the native structure of the valuable compounds is degraded. Furthermore, this prevents the development of a resource-efficient processing. Oilseeds, like rapeseed, have a great potential to provide both plant-based oils and proteins; however, novel developments are needed to fully exploit them.

To develop a more resource-efficient fractionation process, this research investigates the use of electric field assisted separation processes. In contrast to the conventional dispersion – precipitation based approach, the electrophoretic separation utilizes surface charge and mobility properties of the compounds for the separation, which is expected to reduce the need for auxiliary chemicals, water and energy consumption.