Kinetics of Oil Extraction from Candlenut (Aleurites moluccana)

Abstract

Oil from candlenut (Aleurites moluccana) was extracted using a solvent extraction technique. The influence of three parameters namely extraction time, extraction temperature as well as liquid to solid (L/S) ratio on the candlenut oil yield were studied to optimise the extraction conditions for achieving maximum oil yield. The maximum candlenut oil yield (35.67%) was achieved using methanol as a solvent at a temperature of 45oC for 80 min of extraction period. The optimum L/S ratio was 10ml/g. It was found that the candlenut oil yield increases with the increase of extraction time, extraction temperature and L/S ratio. Kinetics of solvent extraction of oil from candlenut was evaluated using Peleg’s model and Logarithmic model. The model parameters were calculated using the experimental data. The kinetics of candlenut oil extraction conforms very well to the Peleg’s model with a high R2 value of 0.9927 and low MRPD value of 1.827%. However, the Logarithmic model can fairly describe the candlenut oil extraction process with the values of R2 and MRPD of 0.9653 and 4.352%, respectively.