The production of monosodium glutamate has grown from a by-product of the sugar beet industry to an important position in today’s food commodities. Monosodium glutamate is made from Steffan's waste, corn gluten, wheat gluten, and other similar proteinaceous materials. In trying to find moro and better uses for soybeans, it was discovered that soybean meal was an excellent raw material for making monosodium glutamate because of the high percentage of proteins in the meal . For years in the Far East, soybean meal has been utilized for the production of monosodium glutamate, but American industry had to be educated to make use of the potential of the soybean.

For the various processes required for the isolation and purification of glutamic acid for the conversion into monosodium glutamate, the yields obtained have been low of the order of between 50 and 70 percent by weight of the total glutamic acid originally contained in the proteinaceous substances processed. The difficulty involved in the manufacture of monosodium glutamate is in getting the glutamic acid in a refined state. Other amino acids are obtained during the initial hydrolysis step, and they are difficult to remove to obtain the "edible" glutamic acid of commerce.

The proposed production of monosodium glutamate from soybean meal is an answer to higher yields and less expensive equipment and reagents. In using the soybean meal, which is itself a highly valuable cattle food, the glutamic acid is taken out leaving valuable amino acids in the waste after the initial hydrolysis step. Therefore, this waste referred to as humin can be sold as a hydrolyzed cattle food.

It was the purpose of this investigation to design a pilot plant for the production of monosodium glutamate. The problem involved the investigation of synthesis methods and conditions, cost analyses, and actual design of the pilot plant.