Performance of polymeric membranes for phospholipid removal from residual palm fibre oil/hexane miscella

Palm pressed ibre,a by-product from the processing of crude palm oil contains about 5%-8% residual oil (on dry basis). the oil contains a high amount of minor components such as phospholipids,carotenes and vitamin e. this study investigates the ability of polymeric membranes to remove phospholipid from residual palm ibre oil/hexane miscella. the performance of 10 kda polyethersulphone (pes),20 kda pes and 30 kda polyvinylidene luoride (pvdf) membranes were evaluated. a detailed evaluation on 30 kda pvdf showed that permeate lux increases with the increase of operating pressure,temperature and agitation speed. increasing operating pressure from 2 to 6 bar with a temperature of 40°c and speed of 300 rpm resulted in the retention of phospholipids from 81% to 95%. the resistance of the membrane due to concentration polarisation ranged from 30.6 to 97.0 x 1012 m -1 which gave 79% - 84% of total resistance values indicating signiicant inluence on the permeate lux. a complete 23 experimental design indicated statistically that the increased pressure,temperature and agitation speed resulted in a higher permeate lux. an increase in pressure and agitation speed also increased the retention of phospholipid. however,the regression model obtained from this study showed that the temperature had a negative efect on the retention of phospholipid.