SOLVENT SCREENING USING UNIFAC METHOD TO INVESTIGATE THE DEODORIZATION OF SOYBEAN OIL USING A LIQUID SOLVENT P. O. B. HOMRICH, R. CERIANI Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Química, Departamento de Desenvolvimento de Processos e Produtos E-mail para contato:
[email protected] ABSTRACT – Removal of secondary oxidation products from edible oils, currently achieved by steam stripping in the deodorization process, may be conducted under mild conditions with a liquid solvent. Solvent screening can be used to determine more suitable solvents for removing undesirable compounds. In order to investigate the removal of n- hexanal, 2,4-decadienal and hexanoic acid, odor compounds of soybean oil, 16 solvents with low toxicity were preselected by using the qualitative method of Cusack et al. (1991). Solubility data of pseudoternary (diluent + solute + solvent) and binary (solvent + solvent) systems were predicted using UNIFAC at 298.15 K and under 1 atm in Aspen Plus. Two versions of UNIFAC were considered, namely, Magnussen et al. (1981) and Hirata et al. (2013). This last version is specifically adjusted for lipid technology systems. In general, the results indicated that 7 solvents presented a separation region (type I or II), with different mutual solubility for the solvent/diluent pair. In addition, a partial miscibility were verified for three binary systems of solvents and water. This simulated screening was a guidance for sets of experiments involving liquid-liquid equilibria under investigation currently in our lab. 1. INTRODUCTION The deodorization of vegetable oils causes various deleterious consequences, such as the removal of nutraceutical compounds, the degradation of triacylglycerol, the undesirable reactions of oxidation and cis-trans isomerization, and the 3-MCPD (3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol) contaminant formation (Suliman and Jiang, 2013; Szydłowska-Czerniak et al., 2011; Ermacora and Hrncirik, 2014).