OPTIMIZATION OF EXTRACTION PROCESSES IN PURIFYING VITAMIN E FROM PALM FATTY ACID DISTILLATE

• Main Author: Azizah Atsari, Nurul
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik kimia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/75845
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

<p align="justify">Palm oil as a vegetable oil has a vitamin E content of up to 600 ?1000 ppm. Vitamin E with good antioxidant activity and high economic value in palm oil increases five times as the processing of refined palm oil (CPO) produces a side product in the form of palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD). This shows that PFAD has good potential as a raw material for obtaining vitamin E. Vitamin E is useful as a food additive and has benefits for the health of the human body. Antioxidant activity in vitamin E can inhibit the formation of free radicals and prevent various diseases such as cancer and help maintain healthy skin. Vitamin E in PFAD mixes with free fatty acids so that a separation process is required. Vitamin E can be separated through a process technology that removes fat components and non-saponifiable components. Various separation process technologies include solvent extraction, saponification, adsorption, distillation, esterification, and enzymatic processes. The high yield of vitamin E can be obtained by combining several available process technologies. To increase the purity of vitamin E obtained from PFAD, vitamin E is extracted using n-hexane, ethanol, and water, which is preceded by a homogenization and neutralization process to remove free fatty acids. The homogenization process was carried out by dispersing water and the neutralization was carried out by adding magnesium oxide (MgO) base. Extraction was carried out using several solvents including n-hexane, ethanol, and water to bind each component based on its polarity index so that vitamin E can be separated from free fatty acids and other components. Furthermore, the extraction results were evaporated to separate the solvent from the vitamin E concentrate. In this study, the temperature variables and the composition of the solvent during extraction were determined to be varied. In general, this study aims to determine the significant effect of solvent composition and extraction temperature on the yield and purity of vitamin E including acid number, total tocopherol and antioxidant activity. Statistical analysis was performed to determine the significance of each variable to the response. Based on the results of the analysis of variance, the variables of temperature and solvent ratio have a significant effect on each other with a p value <0,05. The purity of vitamin E is strongly influenced by variables, the lower the ethanol ratio and the higher the extraction temperature used, the higher the yield and purity of vitamin E obtained. The highest yield of vitamin E to PFAD was 13,07%-w/w in the solvent composition n-hexane:ethanol:water 45:10:45 at 65oC. High purity vitamin E concentrate was obtained with the lowest acid value of 15,50 mg KOH/g sample and very strong antioxidant activity (IC50 value 17,07 ppm) on the composition n-hexane:ethanol:water 40:20:40 at 60oC. To determine the optimal conditions for extraction, optimization was carried out with the central composite design and analyzed using the response surface methodology (RSM) with modifications to the central composite design by adding axial points to the yield response and purity of vitamin E. RSM was considered the most effective technique for determining the optimal conditions of a manufacturing process. RSM is generally used for parameter estimation and fitting the model using multiple regression analysis. In addition, RSM is used to test the interaction of two independent and interactive variables to obtain optimal conditions. The composite design or central composite design (CCD) used in this study is due to its efficiency and flexibility in providing the amount of data by reducing the number of trials. Optimal conditions were obtained using the optimizer on Minitab. 18 with a yield of vitamin E to PFAD of 13.07%-w/w and an IC50 value of 28.61 ppm (very strong antioxidant activity). Optimum conditions were obtained at the percentage of solvent n-hexane:ethanol:water of 39.5:21:39.5 and an extraction temperature of 50.07 ?C. The optimization results show that the desaribility value of 0.93 is equivalent to 93% with the model's R2 value obtained in the range of 0.92-0.98.