How to Efficiently Remove tert‐butylhydroquinone from Commercial Soybean Oils to Obtain Stripped Oils: Eliminating tert‐butylhydroquinone's Influence on Oxidative Stabilities of Model Oil‐in‐Water Emulsions

Abstract

The present study proposes an efficient method to effectively strip tert‐butylhydroquinone (TBHQ) from commercial soybean oils. Ethanol, a typically common and relatively safe organic solvent, can successfully strip TBHQ by employing a liquid‐liquid extraction strategy. The results show that the volume ratio of ethanol to oil is a key factor for stripping efficiency (SE), and 4:1 (v/v) is considered the optimal parameter. When compared with traditional stripping methods via adsorbing materials (such as activated charcoal or alumina powder), the proposed ethanol extraction method can more effectively strip TBHQ from commercial oils with lower adsorption loss and higher SE. Moreover, the model O/W emulsion systems prepared using ethanol stripped oils showed the highest degree of lipid oxidation. The method can completely strip TBHQ from commercial soybean oils, thereby eliminating its influence on oxidative stabilities of model oil‐in‐water emulsions. Practical Applications: The ethanol stripping method can be applied as a pretreatment method to completely strip TBHQ from commercial soybean oils, and subsequently eliminate the influence of TBHQ on lipid oxidation in model O/W emulsion systems during storage.