Sunflower protein enrichment. Methods and potential applications

A method to increase the protein content of sunflower meal was developed that uses a combination of milling, sieving and gravity tables to separate fractions with higher and lower protein content. The investigation allowed to compare different mills’ ability to break down the lumps of raw sunflower meal and allow a suitable mechanical separation with sieving and gravity separation. Different settings of the mills were tested with or without material pre-sieving. Sieve mesh sizes were investigated in the range 250 to 500 μm that allowed the production of high protein fine material and a good performance of the gravity table separation. Sunflower meal was successfully enriched in protein to a level similar to low protein soybean meal by utilising the process described in this work. In particular proteins were increased on average by 7% to a level of 43.5%. The yield of the separation can justify industrial applications of this process whereby the high protein material can have a potential use in feed and food formulations.