Evaluation of permeation of macauba oil and n-hexane mixtures through polymeric commercial membranes subjected to different pre-treatments

Macauba is a Brazilian palm tree with high edible oil productivity and of great interest to many applications. In the oil extraction process, solvent recovery is one point of major concern, due to its high energy consumption and oil quality losses. Those drawbacks can be partially overcome by integration of membrane technology to the usual solvent distillation step. The present work tested four ultrafiltration (UF) and one nanofiltration (NF) membrane (Microdyn-Nadir) on the solvent recovery of synthetic mixtures of macauba oil and n-hexane. Membranes were pre-treated before use with different solvents in specific time lengths, according to preliminary studies. The membrane performance was evaluated by permeate flux and oil retention. Macauba (pulp and kernel) oil was evaluated by determinations of acidity, peroxide value and fatty acid profile. Membranes showed usual flux behaviour, compatible with other studies concerning oil/solvent mixtures permeation, although its values were quite above the expected. Best results for retention (>30%) are related to the membranes with lower molar mass cut-off (MMCO), and the best balance between permeate flux and oil retention was found for the NF membrane (12.4 g m−2 h−1, 34.7%).