The recovery of used frying oils is of commercial and economic importa
nce. One additional reuse of recovered oil could provide considerable
savings to the food processors. Seven commonly used filter aids: Silas
orb, Britesorb, HE 600, Purifry, Frypowder, Activated Carbon, and Magn
esol, as well as two commercially unavailable adsorbents, Sorbead AF a
nd Calsilite were studied. A number of AOCS official methods were used
to evaluate their adsorptiveness, fee fatty acids (FFA), conjugated d
iene value (CDV), total polar components (TPC), oxidative stability in
dex (OSI), color and viscosity (V). High performance size exclusion ch
romatography was employed to determine the amount of polymers and low
molecular weight compounds. When heated to 150C prior to filtration, H
E 600 was found to reduce FFA content by 84.5%. Frypowder improved oil
stability by 38. 3%, and Magnesol lightened oil color by 46. 3%. Afte
r statistical analysis of the data, five of them were selected, two or
three of which were blended to obtain the most effective combination.
The blending of HB 600 and Magnesol reduced FFA and TPC by 90.8-93.7%
and 6.0-17.8%, respectively, and improved oil stability by 23.4-24.7%
. The adsorbent combinations have potential for use in practical fryin
g operation to improve the functional and healthy aspects of used fryi
ng oils.