Concentration of linoleic acid from cottonseed oil by starch complexation

The extraction of linoleic acid from fatty acids (FA) of the cottonseed oil using starch–FA complexes was developed for the first time. We showed that starch can form inclusion complexes of different strengths with FA and that the different strengths stem from the differences in chain length, degree of unsaturation, and position of double bonds of FA. The optimal separation conditions were determined as follows: The inclusion temperature is 69 °C, the inclusion time is 30 min, the starch/FA mass ratio is 10:1, and the ratio of the volume of methanol–water solution and the mass of FA is 18:1. Compared to urea inclusion complexation, starch complexation has milder reaction temperature and shorter reaction time. Under these conditions, linoleic acid can be concentrated from 38.9% to 70.04% by one-off extraction. Moreover, the experimental results demonstrate the almost perfect reusability of starch. These results show that starch complexation is a promising method that can be used to obtain highly concentrated linoleic acid from cottonseed oil.