Patent GB-552704-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to the extraction of nutritive components from vegetable matter
IPC: A23L1/30
Filed: 1941-03-18
Abstract: 552,704. Distilling vegetable juices, spray evaporators. AMERICAN DAIRIES, Inc. March 18, 1941, No. 3682. Convention date, March 20, 1940. [Class 32] [Also in Groups IV and VI] Nutritive components are extracted (a) from vegetable matter in general, e.g. grasses, legumes, carrots, spinach or lettuce, by pulping the material, separating the juices from the pulp, flash evaporating a portion of the moisture from the juice, passing the condensed juice in countercurrent to a stream of warm air to obtain a powder containing water-soluble nutritive components, and treating the pulp to extract the oil-soluble nutritive components, (b) from leafy vegetable matter by similarly pulping the material, separating and flash-evaporating the juice, drying the pulp, treating it with a solvent to extract the fat-soluble vitamins and concentrating the extract. In an example of the application of the process . to grasses, the material is fed from a hopper 2, through a rotary chopper 3 to which is fed from a tank 6 an aqueous solution of phosphoric, citric or hydrochloric acid; to a pulper 10, and a centrifuge 13 from which the juice is delivered by a pump 21 to an evaporator 28 and the pulp is delivered by a screw conveyer 16 to a rotary drier 60. In the evaporator the juice drops through a tower 22, containing a steam coil 23, into a receiver 28 from which vapours are withdrawn by a pump 35 through a condenser 30, the condensate flowing into a receiver 33, and the concentrated juice from the receiver 28 is delivered by a pump 40 to a spray pipe 41 from which it falls through a drier 42 to which an upward current of warm air is supplied from a blower 43, the resulting powder collecting in the hopper 51. To the pulp drier 60 are delivered hot combustion gases from a burner 55 and these carry the pulp through a cyclone separator 67 to a mixer 70 supplied by a pump 72 with a solvent, e.g. gasoline, heptane or Stoddard's solvent, from a tank 71. The mixture passes to a filter from which the pulp passes into a second mixer 80 to which solvent is supplied through a pipe 81, the resulting mixture passing to a second filter 85. The filtrates from both filters are delivered by a pump 90 through a vessel 93 containing a dehydrating agent, e.g. calcium chloride or sodium hydroxide to a mixer 99 supplied from a hopper 101 with calcium or magnesium oxide which absorbs the chlorophyll. The mixture passes to a filter 104 and chlorophyll may be.recovered from the filtrant, while the filtrate passes into a still 107 receiving dilute acid, e.g. hydrochloric acid, from a tank 108. Most of the solvent is distilled off and is delivered from a condenser 115 to a separator 118 from which water is removed through a pipe 119 and the solvent is delivered by a pump 122 to the tank 71. The liquid withdrawn from the still 107 is delivered to a mixer 126 into which is 'pumped from a tank 127 a neutralizing and saponifying solution, e.g. of sodium carbonate, and the mixture passes into a settler 133 from which an aqueous solution of soaps and salts is withdrawn through a pipe 134, while the solution of vitamins, sterols and like non-saponifiable oil-soluble constituents is delivered by a pump 136 to a mixer 138 supplied with an edible oil from a tank 139. The resulting mixture passes to a still 142 from which the solvent vapours pass to the condenser 115 and the edible oil containing the non-saponifiable oil-soluble constituents is withdrawn through a valve 146.