Derivatives

Meal is a by-product of the production of vegetable oils using extraction technology. There are various types of meal, depending on raw material: sunflower, linseed, soybean, cotton, peanut, hemp, etc. In poultry farming, soybean and sunflower meals are most valuable. Cakes and meals differ in the way they are produced. The oil cake is produced by pressing the oil; meal is made by extraction. Cakes usually contain 5 to 7 percent of fat, while meal has only 2–3%. Both are rich in protein, which makes up to 50% of weight. High quality and easily digestible, this protein is often similar to animal protein.

Fields of sunflower meal use: animal, poultry, and fish fodder. Used as is and as an additive in feed. Contains up to 43% of highly digestible protein. Sunflower meal improves animal performance and enhances livestock product quality. Increases fat content in milk and daily milk yields of cows. Broiler chickens: Sunflower meal is widely used in feeding poultry. Farmers start using these products for chickens from 7–14 days of age.

A significant advantage of sunflower meal is its resistance to mycotoxin damage and thus the minimum risk of damage, which related to factors that meal is less susceptible to than other types of feed. In poultry farming, meal with little husk is considered the most valuable product. Laying hens: When laying hens were fed high-fiber (20%) sunflower meal-based feed, there was a significant decrease in feed intake and daily weight gain.

Traditionally, husks are used as a fodder additive in livestock and poultry farming. Sunflower husks are rich with pentosans and is used in ground form as an additive to coarse fodder. In bulk, husks are used as a bedding to preserve heat. Use in construction: there are some patented technologies for the production of decorative heat and sound insulation boards. Use of husks in mushroom culturing. Use of husks as a fertilizer and soil enhancer.

Use of husks for generating biogas. Biogas is a gaseous substance produced as a result of anaerobic fermentation of organic substances of various origins (including husks). Biogas can be generated from vegetable and household waste, manure, sewage, etc. After degradation, it's often used as an organic fertilizer. Its main components include 55–70% of methane (CH4), 28–43% of carbon dioxide (CO2), and small content of other gases—e.g., hydrogen sulfide (H2S). On average, 1 kg of a 70% degradable organic substance produces 0.18 kg of methane, 0.32 kg of carbon dioxide, 0.2 kg of water, and 0.3 kg of undecomposable residue. Biogas is used as a fuel to produce electricity, heat, step; or as a motor fuel.

Use of husks as an alternative fuel in boilers. The calorific value of 1 tonne of dry sunflower seed husks is equivalent to 17.2 MJ. Husks appear more efficient than firewood (14.6–15.9 MJ/kg) and lignite, while the husk-fuel equivalent amounts to 0.63. When husks are burned, the volume of carbon dioxide produced doesn't exceed that generated during natural decomposition of wood, while the content of other harmful emissions is negligible. Ash produced during the burning of husks can be used as a fertilizer. Today, there are some boilers made in Russia that employ sunflower seed husks as a fuel.

Husks also found application in the hydrolysis industry. There, ethyl alcohol and fodder yeast are made of derivatives. One tonne of husks can deliver into 32 liters of ethyl alcohol or 100–150 kg of fodder yeast or 100 kg glycerol substitute.

Soapstock is sludge resulting from alkaline refining of vegetable oils and fats in the fat-processing industry. Categorized as recyclable waste, it has a complex and unstable composition that depends on the oil or fat nature or properties (acid number, co-substances, etc.), refining method, and process accuracy. Fatty acid composition of butter fat and tallow (hydrogenated fats).

Similar to the fatty acide composition of recyclable raw materials. Contains an aqueous solution of soaps, oil, dyes, mineral and mechanical impurities, etc. Approximate composition of soapstock generated during refining of sunflower oil, cotton oil, and hydrogenated fat, per cent by mass: fat 8–50, including soap 8–30; neutral fat 1–20; water; degradable non-fat components 50–92; small content of unreacted NaOH, NaCl, colors, phosphatides, proteins, and carbohydrates.

To extract free fatty acids from soapstock, it's treated with mineral concentrates or an alkali (to saponify neutral fat) and then distilled. Fatty acids extracted from butter fat and tallow soapstocks are used in production of soap, glycerin, and stearin. Linseed oil soapstock is used in production of drying oil and oil drying agents.