Organic solvent nanofiltration of binary vegetable oil/terpene mixtures: Experiments and modelling

Abstract

Bio-derived solvents such as ρ-cymene, d-limonene and α-pinene represent feasible alternatives to n-hexane for the extraction of vegetable oils. However, the large-scale utilization of these solvents is still limited mainly owing to their high boiling points and latent heats of vaporization. In this work, the performance of composite polydimethylsiloxane/polyacrylonitrile (PDMS/PAN) organic solvent nanofiltration membranes in the recovery of these solvents from their binary mixtures with canola oil is investigated. The sorption isotherms of the mixtures were first studied using free-standing PDMS films and the multicomponent Flory–Huggins model used to determine the resulting interaction par..