Extraction of Tocopherol from Soybean Oil Deodorizer Distillate by Deep Eutectic Solvents

Abstract

Natural tocopherols have strong antioxidant and physiological functions, which are mainly produced from vegetable oil deodorized distillates. In this work, a simple and green solvent extraction method based on deep eutectic solvent has been developed to simultaneously extract three isomers of tocopherols (α, γ and δ-tocopherols) from soybean oil deodorizer distillate (SODD). The key factor to affect the solvent extraction efficiency was proposed that phenolic deep eutectic solvents interacted with targeted tocopherols mainly through π-π bonds interaction. This sustainable extraction process included two steps. Firstly, total tocopherols were extracted from SODD at room temperature by phenolic deep eutectic solvent composed of ChCl and p-cresol. Subsequently, tocopherols were successfully separated from deep eutectic solvent phase by re-extraction with n-hexane, and tocopherols products could be simply recovered. Under the optimum extraction conditions, the extraction efficiency of total tocopherols (α, γ and δ-tocopherols) from SODD was 77.6% after extraction with phenolic deep eutectic solvent.