Abstract
Extraction of oil from ground corn with ethanol and its aqueous solutions in a simultaneous process for oil extraction and alcohol dehydration, is investigated under diverse conditions of temperature, corn size, and ethanol concentration. The amount of oil extracted increases significantly with increase of temperature at all levels of ethanol concentration. Equilibrium constants are reported at different concentrations of ethanol solution as a function of temperature. The rates of extraction have been determined experimentally for ground corn of various particle sizes. The extraction is much more efficient for fine particles of ground corn at any fixed temperature and ethanol concentration. The diffusion rate of ethanol into and/or oil out of the corn particles is a limiting step in oil extraction from coarse ground corn. The limitations imposed by the low rate of ethanol diffusion can be overcome by pre-wetting the ground corn in ethanol before oil extraction. The characteristic properties of oil extracted from ground corn wetted for 18 h at 68 °C are similar to those from unsoaked finely ground corn. A mass transfer model has been developed to represent the experimental data. Various options for treatment of the diffusion coefficients in the model are examined.
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