Modelagem de extração por etanol de óleo da farinha de macaúba

Abstract

The macaúba (Acrocomia aculeata) is a species of palm tree present in abundance in the Center-West region, and its fruit in natura quite consumed by the population. The fruit, which presents high productivity in oil, attracts great industrial interest as an alternative to other vegetable oil sources. The most used process for the extraction of macaúba oil is mechanical pressing, since it relates process efficiency and low cost. As a complement, the solvent extraction can be used to try to reach the total extraction of the oil, realizing the process with the solid residue from the pressing. The most commonly used solvent is n hexane, but due to its toxicity and the fact that it is not sustainable, some alternative solvents are being studied. Based on these considerations, the present work aims to study the process of extracting the residual oil from the macaúba pulp using ethanol as a solvent and performing a mathematical modeling of the procedure. Parameters such as time and solid: solvent ratio will be analyzed with respect to the yield of the process, using an experimental design. The best configuration found for the extraction was the center point, yielding approximately 30% of oil extracted from the initial mass of the sample. The mathematical model found can be represented by Yield = 0.1458 + 0.0131 Concentration - 0.0206 Time + 0.0255 Concentration * Time + 0.1792 Pt Ct. In general, the studies presented satisfactory results, showing that the amount of solvent in the sample directly influences the best extraction efficiency, while the increase in time does not show significant improvement.