Integrated membrane process for pretreating and desolventizing hexane-soybean oil miscella – A pilot plant study

Subramanian, R. and Muthuganesan, N. and Venu, S. and Gopika, S. K. and Utpal Thummar, G. and Chakkaravarthi, A. and Puyam Singh, S. and Satyendra, Singh (2024) Integrated membrane process for pretreating and desolventizing hexane-soybean oil miscella – A pilot plant study. Journal of Membrane Science, 704. pp. 1-11.

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Abstract

The study aimed to develop a membrane desolventizing technology for solvent recovery in vegetable oil extraction. Pretreatment of crude miscella is a prerequisite for an organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) based desolventizing process. Solvent-resistant ultrafiltration (SRUF) membrane employed in micelle-enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF) of hexane-crude soybean oil miscella displayed high phospholipids (PL) rejection (98.5 %) and productivity (~28 L/m2/h), accompanied with a moderate oil rejection (~22 %). The PL-rich retentate fraction was alkali-treated to recover the oil in the stream (8.8 %). This complementary pretreatment approach met the quality requirements and maximized the yield of treated oil (>98 %) while reducing the chemicals in the process. A subsequent two-stage desolventizing of MEUF-treated miscella with solvent-resistant nanofiltration (SRNF) membrane reduced the oil-in-permeate to 1.37 %, achieving the set recycling criteria (<2 %). The results obtained from the pilot scale study (batch size 40 kg of crude miscella) revealed that the MEUF met the pre treatment requirements, and the subsequent OSN process recovered ~63 % of hexane through a non-thermal route for recycling in the extraction process. The pilot-scale evaluation demonstrated the technical feasibility of the proposed membrane desolventizing process employing indigenous spiral-wound SRUF and SRNF membrane modules.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Micelle-enhanced ultrafiltration, Organic solvent, nanofiltration, Pilot scale study, Solvent recovery, Spiral-wound membrane modules
Subjects:	600 Technology > 08 Food technology > 22 Legumes-Pulses > 05 Soya bean 600 Technology > 08 Food technology > 05 Processing and Engineering
Divisions:	Food Engineering
Depositing User:	Somashekar K S
Date Deposited:	05 Mar 2025 10:54
Last Modified:	05 Mar 2025 10:54
URI:	http://ir.cftri.res.in/id/eprint/19187

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