Enrichment of oxyterpenes from orange oil by short path evaporation

• Study of an environmentally friendly alternative process to deterpenate orange oil.
• Determination of its best operating conditions.
• The effluent stream produced is composed mainly by limonene used as a green solvent.
• The maximization of oxigenated compounds added value to the product obtained.

The developing of processes to perform orange oil deterpenation is an important operation to guarantee the industrial application of this material. By not using organic solvents, presenting a small residence time, and operating at low pressures, short path evaporation is an alternative to deterpenate orange oil. However, the determination of its suitable operating conditions is not trivial. Therefore, in this work, the variables: evaporator temperature, condenser temperature, and feed flow rate, were studied aiming to determine the best orange oil deterpenation operating conditions by short path evaporation. In the range of study, the product obtained at 1.33 kPa, using evaporator temperature of 82.5 °C, condenser temperature of 0 °C, and feed flow rate of 10.5 ml/min presented the richest oxygenated fraction due to removing more than 95% of limonene initial content. The concentration of linalool and decanal, oxygenates representatives, were respectively 4.5 and 13 times higher than the initial raw material concentration.

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