Deacidification of sulfur olive oil. II. Multi-stage liquid-liquid extraction of miscella with ethyl alcohol

In this study, laboratory‐scale multi‐stage cross‐ and counter‐current extractions of sulfur olive oil miscella with 70 and 80% ethanol saturated with hexane were investigated. For cross‐current extraction, the extraction factor for free fatty acids was constant in each extraction stage. Therefore, the extraction factors determined in single‐stage extractions were used to calculate the extracted free fatty acid percentages for cross‐current and counter‐current multi‐stage extractions and results were in close agreement with the experimental data. It was possible to determine the amount of solvent and the number of stages required for counter‐current extraction to remove the desired amount of free fatty acids from a given sulfur olive oil with 70 or 80% ethanol. Comparison of the results for these two solvents showed that 80% ethanol was more suitable.