Study on the separation of phospholipids from crude palm oil using a polyethersulfone ultrafiltration membrane

Abstract

Abstract Crude Palm Oil (CPO) extracted from the palm fresh fruit bunches (FFB) should be refined to meet the specified quality for edible oils. One of the components that are removed in the CPO refining process is a phospholipid. Phospholipids are undesirable because they form mucus (gum) in CPO and enhance the emulsion formation during oil processing. As one of the emerging separation processes, membrane technology could be proposed on phospholipid removal in CPO. The research objectives are to synthesize polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration (UF) membrane and evaluate its performance on phospholipids removal in CPO. Besides, the effects of temperature and pressure on UF-PES membrane performance in phospholipid removal were also studied. The UF-PES membrane was prepared by phase inversion method with the composition of PES polymer of 17.5%; Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) polymer as much as 2.5% as pore-forming agent; and 80% (w/w) of N-Methyl Pyrrolidone (NMP) as a solvent. Two types of the UF-PES membrane have been synthesized, namely M1 and M2 membranes. Furthermore, the M1 membrane was selected for the filtration process due to its high resistance to pressures up to 3 bar. The result indicated that the pressure (T) and temperature (S) significantly affected phospholipid removal. The lowest phospholipid removal was obtained in the S2T2 treatment, about 78%. Moreover, the S3T1 and S3T2 treatments gave a stable permeation flux in comparison to the others treatment.