Dairy foods and their byproducts represent a natural source of phospholipids (PLs) with great potential for isolation and further commercialization. The current extraction of dairy PLs involves various steps (concentration, solvent separation, lipid recovery and fractionation) within the entire process, which results in low overall efficiency and economically unviable. This work summarizes our research efforts at evaluating a primary amine (N,N-dimethylcyclohexylamine) as a switchable hydrophilicity solvent (SHS) for extracting dairy PLs. A tertiary anime (N,N-dimethylcyclohexylamine, CyNMe2) was used as switchable solvent, and the extraction was evaluated over a wide range of conditions. After extraction, the solvent was removed from the extract by bubbling CO2 at atmospheric pressure. The recovered PLs were quantified by thin-layer chromatography and HPLC. The extraction efficiency of CyNMe2 ranged from 0.33-99%, depending on the type of byproduct. Remarkably, the CyNMe2 extracted up to 99% of the PLs directly from buttermilk, while only about 11 and 3% of the PLs were extracted with FE and ME, respectively. For CyNMe2, scanning electron images, particle size, and gel electrophoresis revealed great disruption of the protein matrix, releasing the PLs into the aqueous medium. These results demonstrated the feasibility of using SHS such as N,N-dimethylcyclohexylamine for the extraction of dairy PLs.
.jpg "Sergio I. MartÃnez-Monteagudo photo")