Rypsiöljyn happodegummausprosessin optimointi pienoismittakaavassa

The degumming process of vegetable oils is a crucial step in producing high-quality, neutral food-grade cooking oils. Degumming crude rapeseed oil is essential to remove phosphorus-rich phospholipid compounds from the oil which are present in crude oil after the oil extraction process. In this study, a semi-continuous small-scale setup (approx. 1:1000 scale) was developed to simulate industrial acid degumming conditions. Degumming was performed on water degummed rapeseed-oil with an initial phosphorus content of 101 ppm, and was successfully lowered to a range of 10 - 38 ppm. A two-factor experimental design was applied to study the effects of acid and water addition on the residual phosphorus content. The resulting data was fitted using a quadratic response surface model to identify interactions and optimal operating conditions, which were further validated with confirmation runs on the predicted optimum conditions. The predicted optimal conditions resulted in the lowest measured contents of residual phosphorus in the oil (7-8 ppm), demonstrating that significant phosphorus reduction can be achieved within the limits of the acid degumming process.