Abstract. Performance of chemical deacidification of crude palm oil (CPO) using aqueous NaOH solution in a polysulfone hollow fiber ultrafiltration membrane was investigated. The effects of operating temperature, NaOH concentration and flow rates on percentage of free fatty acids (FFA) removal, oil loss, soap entrainment and overall mass transfer coefficient were evaluated. Overall mass transfer coefficients, soap content in oil and neutral oil loss all increased when the temperature was increased from 60 to 70°C due to an increase of the FFA distribution value. A minimum 0.25 N of NaOH or a NaOH to FFA molar ratio of about 7.62 was required to facilitate the expected extraction efficiency. The increased oil flowrate slightly enhanced the solute transport kinetics, while the aqueous phase flowrate did not significantly influence deacidification efficiency or mass transfer coefficient. About 97% of FFA removal was achieved within 4 hours. The maximum oil loss observed was 11% and the highest soap content in the oil without separation step was 3150 ppm. The values of the overall mass transfer coefficient varied from 2.97×10 -7 to 7.71×10 -7 m/s. These results show the potential of using the non dispersive membrane contacting process for chemical deacidification of CPO as well as other vegetable oils.

Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) or biodiesel¸ which is considered as an alternative renewable fuel is usually produced via transesterification reaction of triglyceride from vegetable oil. Generally, there are two major challenges in the production of biodiesel i.e., reversible reaction of transesterification and immiscibility between oil and alcohol. Membrane reactor (MR), which combines reaction and separation, is an alternative process to overcome those challenges. The aim of the integrated reaction-separation process is to shift the equilibrium reaction, and to achieve a higher reaction conversion. The methyl ester that is produced may be separated to meet the biodiesel quality standards. FAME purification using membrane can be conducted without water washing (dry process), and this is interesting as the associated wastewater treatment step is eliminated. Another attractive feature of MR in esterification process is carotenoid recovery which is beneficial to improve the efficiency of the process. Several studies have indicated the efficacy of carotenoids recovery from methyl ester mixture. This paper reviews the use of MR for palm oil esterification. Membrane separation performances in methyl ester purification are also discussed. In addition, the potential of carotene recovery during esterification process is highlighted.

Palm fruit mesocarp and palm oil matrix contain valuable minor substances such as carotene, tocopherol and tocotrienol. Carotene convey important nutritional function which are pro vitamin A activity and antioxidant. Therefore, numerous studies have been developed to establish method of preparing carotene preserved red palm olein. Furthermore, the review of carotene concentrate production through palm oil transesterification into fatty acid methyl ester and its successive concentration methods will be presented. Post treatment stage includes particularly saponification process and could involve membrane technology. A perspective on the potential application of membrane based methods in carotene concentrate production stages will be briefly discussed.