Patent ID: 7566468

Claim:
A process of continuous, on-line active filtration of cooking oil while frying a food in a vat to remove free-fatty-acids and other undesirable impurities, the process comprising the steps of: (a) transferring oil from the vat to a treatment tank during frying; (b) adding an amount of adsorbent to the oil in the treatment tank to accommodate the transferred oil in the tank; (c) mixing the oil and the adsorbent in the treatment tank by action of a mixing device for a sufficient time to allow substantially all of the free-fatty-acid adsorption of the process to occur in the tank; (d) drawing treated oil from the treatment tank and moving it to a flatbed pressure filter; (e) filtering the treated oil through the flatbed pressure filter to remove the impurity-laden adsorbent therefrom, the flatbed pressure filter having a filter media on which a filter cake of impurity-laden adsorbent forms; (f) returning the filtered oil to the vat; and (g) conducting steps (a) through (f) at a rate such that the oil in the vat has no more than an acceptable low level of free-fatty-acids and other undesirable impurities.