ABSTRACT
Lipids are a large group of fatty organic compounds present in living organisms. Lipids form an important food and energy source in plant and animal cells. These include animal fats, fish oils, vegetable seed oils, natural waxes, and natural oils from sea weeds, squid organs, and fungi cells. Plant lipids comprise a complex mixture of monoglycerides (MG), diglycerides (DG), triglycerides (TG), and free fatty acids (FFA) associated with some minor constituents, such as squalane, tocopherols, sterols, phosphatides (gums), alkaloids, flavonoids, waxy materials, color compounds, and volatiles that provide the taste and odor of the oils. The oils are normally refined prior to making them suitable for human consumption and for enhancing their nutritional and market value. The conventional refining of vegetable oils involves a number of sequential processes, namely, degumming, deacidification, deodorization, clarification, and stabilization. These processes invariably require strong chemicals and harsh operating conditions, causing decomposition and thermal degradation of valuable chemicals and oils. These losses have significant socioeconomic implications. As a result, there have been continuous efforts all over the world to develop newer processes for production of better-quality edible oils in higher quantity and to establish a variety in edible oils, with simultaneous value addition by recovering valuable nutrients, oleochemicals, and pharmaceuticals, in order to compensate for the overall cost of vegetable oil processing.
