Manufacture of Improved Value Added Protein Sources for Ruminants Using Glycerol as a Solvent

Reference Number: K 09-17

Inventors: Drouillard, James; Schneider, Cody; Heidenreich, Jessie

Owner: Kansas State University Research Foundation

USPTO Link:

Invention Summary

Non-enzymatic browning is a process commonly used to increase the nutritional value of plant-derived protein meals for ruminants, and calls for a solvent to be combined with plant protein and a reducing carbohydrate, enzyme, yeast, or bacterium and then heated to induce a Maillard reaction. All current processes utilize water as the solvent. Research at Kansas State University has devised a method of reducing cost and increasing efficiency of ruminant protein sources using glycerol as a replacement for water in non-enzymatic browning processes.

The findings of the research show that replacing water with glycerol alleviates a number of problems encountered in processing. Glycerol has a higher evaporation point than water, which effectively decreases costly evaporative heat losses during processing. A mixture including glycerol can achieve higher processing temperatures, making it possible to utilizing shorter processing times. Feed products stored with high water content can spoil, but glycerol avoids this problem. In in vitro and in situ digestion experiments, glycerol-treated feeds significantly outperformed control feeds made with water as the solvent in terms of their resistance to microbial digestion and proportion of ruminal bypass protein.

Advantages

• Serves as a more effective non-enzymatic browning agent than water
• Yields lower percentage of weight loss during processing due to glycerol’s higher vaporization temperature resulting in less energy loss
• More efficient heating yields shorter processing times and less energy use
• Precludes necessity for drying of products after non-enzymatic browning
• Requires no measures to prevent molding or spoilage during storage
• In feeds that contain high proportions of mucilage in their seed coat (such as flaxseed or sesame seed), utilizing glycerin as the solvent avoids problems associated with solubilization of mucilage and subsequent bridging
• Enhances the proportion of bypass protein in plant-based protein meals

Applications

• For production of plant protein meals or oilseeds that contain greater proportions of ruminally undegraded (bypass) protein
• For production of oilseed products that are more resistant to lipid biohydroenation