Processo cavitation - inovação em refino de óleo de soja

Abstract

Due to the numerous benefits of soybean oil for human health, the consumption increased from 2007 to 2016. On the production of soybean oil, the refining is the stage that transforms the crude oil on refined oil, ready for human consumption. On a soybean oil refinery, there are 3 processes: neutralization, bleaching and deodorization. These processes are responsible to eliminate certain substances that give unpleaseant color, odor and taste for the oil and are inevitably extracted from the soybean seed. The neutralization removes the non-hydratable phopholipids ant the free fatty acids (FFA), through the addition of acid (commonly phosphoric) and soda, respectively. The reactions produce a heavy phase of impurities, that are separated by centrifugation. In this context, the process studied in the present work is the neutralization and its optimization by a new technology: Controlled Flow Cavitation. The system responsible for the production of controlled cavitation is composed of a gear pump and a reactor. With the production of nanobowels, the oil-reagent surface contact increase drastically and the reaction’s efficiency too, making the consumption of chemicals and the cost reduce.