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The separation of lecithin and soya oil in a countercurrent column by near critical fluid extraction
Author(s) -
Peter Siegfried,
Weidner Eckhard,
Schneider Michael,
Ziegelitz Rüdiger
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
chemical engineering and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-4125
pISSN - 0930-7516
DOI - 10.1002/ceat.270100106
Subject(s) - extraction (chemistry) , countercurrent exchange , chromatography , lecithin , raw material , pilot plant , chemistry , separation process , process engineering , acetone , thermodynamics , engineering , organic chemistry , physics
The present contribution illustrates a way of developing a continuous separation process for near critical fluid extraction, on the example of separation of soya oil from lecithin. First, a suitable solvent was selected. Phase equilibria were measured in autoclaves. Operating conditions for a pilot plant were derived from the phase equilibrium data. The pilot plant experiments provided the necessary data for designing a production plant. Computer programs for phase equilibrium, stage to stage and mass and heat balance calculations were used in order to minimize the number of experiments. A production plant with a capacity of 500 t/a of raw lecithin was designed on the basis of experimental and computational results. A cost estimation, based on tenders, showed that it is more economical to produce lecithin by near critical fluid extraction than by conventional acetone extraction.