19-08-2014, 10:35 AM
Separation of fatty acids either from mixture of fatty acids or partially hydrolyzed oil plays a vital role in getting pure fatty acid from mixture of fatty acid or increasing the rate of enzymatic reaction by the removal of fatty acid from partially hydrolyzed oil. Various separation processes like distillation, extraction, adsorption and crystallization are available for separation of fatty acid. However, distillation can not be used for the separation of heat sensitive fatty acids. Similarly, extraction can not be used due to equal solubility of fatty acid and castor oil in many solvents. Due to very low adsorption capacity of the currently available adsorbents the use of adsorption for the separation of fatty acid is not feasible.
Separation of fatty acids either from mixture of fatty acids or partially hydrolyzed oil plays a vital role in getting pure fatty acid from mixture of fatty acid or increasing the rate of enzymatic reaction by the removal of fatty acid from partially hydrolyzed oil. Various separation processes like distillation, extraction, adsorption and crystallization are available for separation of fatty acid. However, distillation can not be used for the separation of heat sensitive fatty acids. Similarly, extraction can not be used due to equal solubility of fatty acid and castor oil in many solvents. Due to very low adsorption capacity of the currently available adsorbents the use of adsorption for the separation of fatty acid is not feasible.
In the present study, separation of castor oil fatty acid from partially hydrolyzed oil has been studied by the process of crystallization.
Crystallization of partially hydrolyzed castor oil has been carried out in a glass reactor with copper coil. The effect of speed of stirrer and the temperature of the bulk on the change in the acid content of the bulk has been studied. On the other hand, partially hydrolyzed oil has been crystallized in a vessel connected with filtration assembly. The low temperature filtration has been carried out at a high pressure. Also, in order to reduce the viscosity of the reaction mixture for the ease of filtration of crystallized fatty acid especially at low temperatures, the crystallization of ricinoleic acid using solvents has also been studied. It has been observed that there was no change in the fatty acid content of partially hydrolyzed oil at a bulk temperature of 4 0C & -2 0C as compared to 27 % reduction in fatty acid content at a bulk temperature of -25 0C in coil reactor studies. In cold filtration of partially hydrolyzed oil at -2 0C, 22 % reduction in acid value has been observed.