Food grade silica from Grace

Innovative, Safe and High-Performance Silica Solutions for Global Food, Pharmaceutical and Industrial Applications

As a world-leading specialty chemical enterprise with a century-long heritage in silica technology innovation, W. R. Grace & Co.-Conn. (Grace) has built a sterling reputation in the global food and pharmaceutical industries with its full series of food grade silica products. With industry-leading purity, precisely engineered structural properties, full global regulatory compliance, and versatile application adaptability, Grace's food grade silica has become a core functional material for food processing, edible oil refining, pharmaceutical manufacturing, nutraceutical formulation and food contact material production, providing all-round solutions for process upgrading, product quality improvement, safety compliance and sustainable production for customers worldwide.

Core Technology: The Cornerstone of Premium Food Grade Silica

Grace's food grade silica products are all high-purity synthetic amorphous silica, manufactured through proprietary and precisely controlled production processes, which fundamentally distinguish them from traditional natural mineral-based silica products and endow them with unparalleled performance advantages in food safety and functional application.

At the core of Grace's technology is its industry-leading pore structure engineering and purification process. The production process creates micronized particles with highly defined and narrow pore size distribution, and the unique purification step effectively removes metal ions that may cause unexpected reactions in food and pharmaceutical systems, ensuring ultra-high product purity and batch-to-batch consistency. The series products feature a silica (SiO₂) content of up to 99.7% on a dry basis, with no respirable crystalline silica, chemically inert properties that do not trigger adverse oxidation reactions in food substrates, and a highly developed mesoporous network that delivers exceptional adsorption capacity. For example, TRISYL series silica for oil refining has an ultra-high specific surface area of 700 m²/g, and one teaspoon of the product has an expanded surface area of more than 7000 m², equivalent to the size of a standard football field; the SYLOID 244 FP grade can adsorb up to 3 times its own weight in liquid, setting a benchmark for adsorption performance in the industry.

All Grace food grade silica production facilities are ISO 9001 certified, and comply with IPEC-PQG GMP guidelines for pharmaceutical excipients and HACCP food safety management system, ensuring that every batch of products meets the most stringent quality and safety standards from raw material input to finished product delivery.

Full Global Regulatory Compliance: A Passport for Worldwide Food & Pharmaceutical Applications

Food safety and regulatory compliance are the lifeline of food grade materials, and Grace's food grade silica series has passed the most stringent certification systems in the world, fully meeting the regulatory requirements of all major global markets, and providing solid support for customers' product registration and market access worldwide.

All products comply with the latest edition of the following standards and regulations:

• Pharmacopoeia standards: United States Pharmacopoeia/National Formulary (USP-NF) for silicon dioxide, European Pharmacopoeia (EP) for colloidal hydrated silica and dental type silica, Japanese Pharmaceutical Excipients (JPE) for hydrated silicon dioxide, and Chinese National Standard GB 25576-2010 Class III for food grade silica;
• Food additive standards: Food Chemicals Codex (FCC), EU Commission Regulation No. 231/2012 for food additive E 551, Japan's Specifications and Standards for Food Additives (D326), and the requirements of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) for amorphous silicon dioxide;
• Feed additive certification: PERKASIL series products are approved as feed additive E 551a according to EU Council Directive 70/524/EEC, covering both food and feed application scenarios.

Grace provides complete regulatory documentation and traceability support for all food grade silica products, and strictly controls the limits of heavy metals and harmful impurities. For example, the lead, arsenic, mercury and other heavy metal limits of the products are far lower than the international general standards, and the microbial indicators are strictly controlled to fully ensure the safety of use in food and pharmaceutical products.

Core Product Portfolio: Tailored Solutions for Diverse Application Scenarios

Grace has built a comprehensive food grade silica product matrix based on decades of application research and development, covering different functional requirements such as flow aid, adsorption, moisture control, matting and purification, and can accurately match the diversified needs of various food and pharmaceutical industry segments.

1. SYLOID® FP Series: Food & Pharmaceutical Grade Multifunctional Silica

As the flagship product line of Grace food grade silica, SYLOID FP series is a high-performance multifunctional excipient widely used in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and food processing industries, with a complete grade matrix to meet different formulation needs:

2. TRISYL® Series: Food Grade Silica Adsorbent for Edible Oil Refining

TRISYL series is a synthetic food grade processing aid specially developed for edible oil and fat refining, which is a high-performance upgrade alternative to traditional activated bleaching earth (ABE), and fully complies with food safety standards for edible oil processing.

With 99.7% ultra-high purity SiO₂ on a dry basis, 700 m²/g specific surface area, >60% moisture content and 16-26μm optimized particle size, TRISYL silica can efficiently remove polar and ionic contaminants such as phospholipids, soaps and trace metals in oils and fats, which cannot be reduced to ideal levels by traditional water washing processes alone. Compared with traditional ABE, TRISYL achieves up to 85% total cost saving, 90% reduction in spent filter cake, greatly reduces hazardous waste disposal costs and oil loss in filtration, and improves product yield. Its chemically inert property does not trigger adverse oxidation of oils and fats, effectively extending the shelf life of refined edible oil.

It is suitable for the whole refining process of all animal and vegetable oils and fats, used cooking oil recycling, animal fat de-collagenization, and renewable diesel feedstock pretreatment that meets food grade standards, and can be embedded in degumming, bleaching, pre-treatment, post-hydrogenation and other core links, and supports modified caustic refining process that eliminates secondary water washing, helping enterprises achieve green and low-carbon production.

3. PERKASIL® SM 660 (U): General Food Grade Precipitated Silica

PERKASIL SM 660 (U) is a general-purpose food grade precipitated silica, which is a flavorless, odorless white free-flowing powder, with a BET specific surface area of 170-210 m²/g, average particle size of 16.0-20.0μm, and oil absorption of 220-270 ml/100g.

It is widely used as an anti-caking agent, free flow agent and carrier for food and feed additives, minerals and salts, and is also suitable as a liquid carrier for vitamins, cosmetics, flavors and fragrances, fats and antioxidants. It meets both food and feed additive regulatory standards, and is a cost-effective solution for bulk powder food processing.

4. SYLOID® AQ Series: Food Contact Grade Silica Matting Agent

To meet the demand for high-performance food contact waterborne wood coatings, Grace has developed the SYLOID AQ series of organically modified food contact grade silica matting agents, including AQ 800 and AQ 880 grades. The products are specially designed for waterborne wood coatings for furniture, cabinets and flooring that come into contact with food, achieving a natural deep matte finish while providing excellent chemical resistance and transparency, effectively resisting stains from daily contact with black coffee, black tea, red wine and 50% ethanol. With the advantages of easy dispersion and low dusting, it helps customers develop environmentally friendly food contact coatings with superior performance.

Full-Scenario Application Value: Empowering Industry Upgrading in Multiple Fields

With excellent product performance and full regulatory compliance, Grace food grade silica has become an indispensable core functional material in the global food and pharmaceutical industry chain, solving key pain points in production and formulation for customers in different segments.

Pharmaceutical & Nutraceutical Industry

In the production of solid preparations, probiotics, botanical extracts and vitamin products, the industry has long faced challenges such as poor powder flowability, moisture-induced degradation of active ingredients, difficulty in solidifying oily components, large tablet weight variation, and low survival rate of fragile probiotics during compression. Grace's SYLOID FP series silica solves these problems in an all-round way: only 0.2%-2% addition can significantly improve the flowability of the powder blend, reduce the tablet weight variation to the industry-leading level; its high porosity structure can lock free moisture in the formulation, protect moisture-sensitive active ingredients, and extend the product shelf life; it can convert liquid and oily active ingredients into free-flowing powder, realizing the liquid-solid dosage form conversion; it can also increase tablet hardness at lower compression force, reduce friability, avoid damage to probiotic organisms during tableting, and support direct compression process to replace traditional granulation, greatly improving production efficiency.

Edible Oil & Fat Refining Industry

Traditional edible oil refining processes have pain points such as incomplete removal of phospholipids and trace metals by water washing, large dosage of activated bleaching earth, high oil loss, large amount of solid waste, and easy oxidation of oils and fats. TRISYL food grade silica adsorbent has completely changed this situation: it achieves deep removal of polar contaminants with ultra-low dosage, reduces oil loss in the filtration link, and improves the yield of refined oil; it reduces 90% of spent filter cake, greatly reduces the cost of hazardous waste disposal, and lowers the environmental footprint of production; the modified alkali refining process matched with it can eliminate the secondary water washing centrifuge link, save water resources and reduce wastewater discharge; its chemical inertness will not promote oil oxidation reaction, and effectively extend the shelf life of the final edible oil product.

Food Processing & Food Additive Industry

For powdered food, condiments, solid beverages and food additives, caking and poor flowability during production and storage are long-standing industry problems, and the solid loading of liquid flavors, fragrances and antioxidants also has high technical requirements. Grace's PERKASIL and SYLOID FP series silica, as high-efficiency anti-caking agent and free flow agent, can prevent particle packing and caking through physical barrier and inter-particle friction reduction, maintain the free flow characteristics of bulk powder during processing and storage, and reduce production downtime; as a high-performance carrier, it can stably load liquid food additives such as flavors, fragrances and antioxidants, improve their dispersion stability in food systems, and will not affect the flavor and nutritional composition of the final food product due to its chemical inertness.

Food Contact Material & Coating Industry

For food contact wood products such as furniture, cabinets and flooring, the waterborne coatings used need to meet both food contact safety standards and high requirements for matte effect, chemical resistance, transparency and scratch resistance. Grace's SYLOID AQ series food contact grade silica matting agent perfectly balances these performance requirements, with proprietary organic modification technology, it can achieve a highly matted surface without affecting the key parameters of the coating system, and has excellent transparency to perfectly present the natural texture of wood, while its excellent chemical resistance can eliminate or significantly reduce the appearance of common stains in daily use, fully meeting the safety and performance requirements of food contact coatings.

Global Technical Support & Service System

While providing high-quality food grade silica products, Grace has built a full-cycle technical service and support system covering the whole world, to ensure that customers can give full play to the best performance of the products in actual production.

Grace provides regional exclusive technical customer service around the world, with service outlets in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific (Shanghai, China) and other regions, to provide localized on-site service, equipment adaptation and process commissioning support for customers; for oil refining and pharmaceutical production customers, it also provides in-plant customized economic analysis service, simulates downstream processes according to the actual plant design and raw material quality of the enterprise, accurately calculates the cost saving space and process optimization direction after using Grace products, and helps customers maximize economic benefits. In addition, Grace provides complete regulatory documentation, product testing methods and formula development guidance, to help customers quickly complete product development and market access in various countries and regions around the world.

Conclusion

For more than a century, Grace has been deeply engaged in the research, development and production of silica materials, and its food grade silica series has become a benchmark in the global industry with its leading technology, ultra-high safety standards, full regulatory compliance and versatile application adaptability. From pharmaceutical excipients to edible oil refining, from food processing to food contact materials, Grace's food grade silica continues to provide innovative, safe, efficient and sustainable solutions for the global food and pharmaceutical industry, helping customers improve product quality, optimize production efficiency, reduce environmental footprint, and always adhere to the mission of using technological innovation to protect food safety and promote industry upgrading. It is a trusted long-term partner for food and pharmaceutical manufacturers around the world.

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