Simultaneous improvement in solvent permeability and deacidification of soybean oil by nanofiltration

FIRMAN LETICIA; OCHOA, NELIO; MARCHESE, JOSÉ; PAGLIERO, CECILIA

JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY-MYSORE

ASSOC FOOD SCIENT TECHN INDIA

Año: 2017 vol. 54 p. 398 - 407

0022-1155

Abstract In this paper, soybean oil deacidification andhexane removal using laboratory scale solvent resistancenanofiltration membranes based technique is presented.Composite nanofiltration membranes made of differentpolymers poly(vinylideneflouride) (PVDF), polydimethylsiloxane(SI), polycarbonate (PC), and glycerol were testedto remove the hexane and free fatty acid (FFA) fromsoybean oil/hexane miscella (oil feed solution 10, 25, and35% w/w) at 20 bar of transmembrane pressure and 30 C,in a dead-end filtration set up. All membranes testedshowed low fouling phenomena and high stability in thepresence of hexane throughout the membrane pre-treatmentand permeation procedure. The PVDF-10SI-1PCmembrane showed the best performance achieving a miscellapermeability of Lm = 6.8 9 10-6 L (h m bar)-1, oiland FFA sieving efficiency of b(oil) = 0.21(80% of oilrejection) and bFFA = 2.43 (27% of FFA removal),respectively, at oil feed concentration of 25%. Apart fromthese specific properties, the PVDF-10SI-1PC membranepresented excellent mechanical and chemical resistancesand low reversible fouling. The results demonstrate thatmembrane technology can attain a high efficiency in thesimultaneous solvent recovery and deacidification of oil/hexane miscella commonly processed in the soybean oilindustry.