Desolventizing of soybean oil/azeotrope mixtures using ceramic membranes.

This work investigates the use of ceramic membranes with different molecular weight cut-offs (MWCOs: 5, 10 and 20 kDa) to desolventize azeotropic solvent mixtures (ethanol/n-hexane and isopropyl alcohol/n-hexane) from soybean oil/azeotrope micelles. Results show that a decrease in the MWCO of a membrane and an increase in the solvent mass ratio in the mixture resulted in a significant reduction in the permeate flux. The 20 kDa membrane presented the highest permeate flux, 80 and 60 kg/m(2)h for the soybean oil/n-hexane/isopropyl alcohol and soybean oil/n-hexane/ethanol azeotropes, respectively, for an oil to solvent ratio of 1:3 (w/w). The highest oil retention was found using the n-hexane/isopropyl alcohol azeotrope, around 25% in the membrane with the lowest MWCO, that is, 5 kDa. It is shown that the azeotropic mixtures provided intermediate characteristics compared to the original pure solvent behavior.