The processing of corn grain allows getting starch, roughage, oil and proteins. Corn gluten is a valuable product that is obtained from corn processing to starch and molasses. It is a pure protein that it has excellent nutritional properties. Corn gluten is not as widely used as wheat gluten. It’s mainly used for feeding farm animals and poultry, and has a short shelf life. The secondary processing of corn gluten is relevant. Besides solution of a number of environmental problems we can get a number of important products such as zein and fat-carotenoid fraction.
This paper describes the process of extraction of corn gluten. It was followed for obtaining of zein and fat-carotenoid fraction, which consists of two stages of the extraction processes. The alcohol extraction was carried out at the first stage of separation, in which ethanol, methanol and 2-propanol were solvents. According to the results of the first stage we have obtained the zein-fat fraction. At the next stage zein and the fat-carotinoid fraction were extracted from zein-fat fraction. The extractant used are trichloromethane, tetrachloromethane and hexane.
In the study of the extraction process of corn gluten were established, that the main factors influencing the extraction efficiency are the nature of the extractant, the time of extraction and fractional composition of the gluten. Research has shown that ethanol as extractant allows obtaining a zein-fat fraction with a degree of extraction of 95÷100%. Also ethanol is the most effective in disposing residues of fat and, together with it, carotenoids from corn gluten. In investigation were shown that the most effective (at the least time and, accordingly, with the least amount of the extractant) is extraction using a fraction of gluten with a particle size of 0.08 to 0.04 mm. The extraction of zein-fat fraction is the most effective to obtaining fat-carotinoid fraction and pure zein by trichloromethane.
This paper also includes detailed methods of synthesizing the required products as well as the proposed block-scheme to process of extraction of corn gluten. The conditions of the extraction of corn gluten were established.
Also this work contains a descriptive complex of researches, which allows effectively using corn gluten to make products that can be utilized for technological and commercial applications.
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