Recent Advances in Deacidification Techniques for Edible Vegetable Oils: A Comprehensive Review

ABSTRACT This review provides an analysis of advances in vegetable oil deacidification methods, highlighting the need to balance efficiency, sustainability, and oil quality. Conventional chemical, physical, and miscella refining processes are compared regarding energy consumption, neutral oil losses, and nutrient preservation. Emerging strategies, including enzymatic esterification, membrane filtration, solvent‐based extractions, and supercritical fluids, show promise for reducing free fatty acids (FFAs) while retaining valuable bioactives. Enzymatic deacidification can achieve FFAs reductions exceeding 90% while preserving phytosterols, though enzyme costs remain a barrier. Membrane processes are energy‐efficient but face scale‐up challenges. Physical refining is still useful for high‐FFA oils like palm yet may risk thermal damage. Research priorities include catalyst innovation, solvent recovery, hybrid process integration, and industrial‐scale validations. By synthesizing current findings, this review offers a critical perspective on sustainable deacidification, serving as a resource to guide technological improvements and advance circular economy practices in vegetable oil refining. Practical Application : The findings summarized in this review highlight practical opportunities for developing refining strategies that minimize nutrient loss while improving process sustainability. Conventional high‐temperature deacidification promotes degradation of thermolabile antioxidants, prompting reliance on synthetic additives such as butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), and tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), whose safety is increasingly questioned by consumers. Emerging approaches, including enzymatic esterification, membrane filtration, and solvent‐assisted extraction, operate under milder conditions that retain tocopherols, phytosterols, and other bioactives, thereby reducing the need for synthetic antioxidants. Implementing these technologies could enable the edible‐oil industry to produce cleaner‐label, antioxidant‐rich oils with enhanced oxidative stability and consumer acceptance, advancing both economic and environmental sustainability in refining operations.