Title: Selective adsorption of dioxins and PCB's from marine oils on activated carbon

Auteur(s): De Meulenaer B ; Maes J ; Van Heerswynghels P ; De Greyt W ; Goeyens L ; Windal I ; Eppe G ; De Pauw E ; Huyghebaert A ;  ; 

Year: 2003

Journal: Organohalogen Compounds

Subject(s): dioxin ; dioxins ; PCB ; food ; feed ;  ; 

Summary: Marine oils are an excellent source of ù-3 fatty acids, such as EP A and DHA. These fatty acids are claimed to have various nutritional benefits, such as reduced risk for cardiac diseases, anti carcinogenic properties and many others. Because of their health protecting and promoting effects, the market share of foods enriched in (0-3 fatty acids is becoming more important. Moreover, commercial interest in using marine oils for food and feed supplementation is growing as well. Two main issues should be taken into account however, considering these marine oils as a source of ù-3 fatty acids: their low oxidative stability and their high degree of contamination with persistent organic pollutants such as dioxins and PCB's. Oil processors face problems in this respect, since high temperature striping is not applicable because of to high losses in ù-3 fatty acids (EP A and DHA). Other techniques such as thin film-short path evaporation are quite expensive. Therefore, selective adsorption of persistent organic pollutants on activated carbon powder seems to be the method of choice nowadays. Activated carbon was shown to be very effective in removing dioxins and coplanar PCB's from oils. Its removal efficiency towards mono-ortho PCB's was however very low. Therefore this paper focuses on the use of activated carbons to remove dioxins and PCB's and particularly the mono-ortho PCB's from marine oils using newly developed activated carbon types. In addition, the effects of the various evaluated activated carbon types on the quality parameters of the oil are investigated.