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Abstract: Soapstock and deodorizer distillates are the major by-products from vegetable oil refining. They have little commercial value and are sold at a fraction of the oil cost. However, their characterization reveals the presence of numerous types of compounds, which could be extremely valuable if extracted at low cost. The literature in this area is discontinuous and warrants the effort to produce a comprehensive review. The aim of this review is to combine and condense the body of research performed on these materials, as well as to suggest the best routes for characterization and extraction. Utilization of the components is also discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We have shown recently that plant steryl and stanyl esters, used as plasma cholesterol-lowering food supplements, can be efficiently prepared from the sterols and stanols via lipase-catalysed esterification with fatty acids and transesterification with fatty acid methyl esters or triacylglycerols [Weber, N., Weitkamp, P., & Mukherjee, K. D. (2001). Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 49, 67–71]. In continuation of this work, sterols contained in three different steam distillates obtained from rapeseed oil by conventional deodorization or from rapeseed oil or a mixture of soybean and rapeseed oils by physical refining have been converted to a high degree in situ to the corresponding long-chain acyl esters via esterification and/or transesterification with fatty acids and/or triacylglycerols using lipase from Candida rugosa as biocatalyst in vacuo (20–40 mbar) at 40 °C. The steryl esters formed were purified to ⩾90% by deacidification, flash chromatography on silica gel and solvent fractionation using acetone-water (9:1,v/v). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]