Preliminary Study on the Manufacturing Process of a Membrane Filtration for Protein Concentration from the Recycled Materials

Abstract

Jatropha curcas oil has become an important raw material in manufacturing biodiesel fuel because of its non-edible and rich-oil characteristics. After oil pressing, the recycled press cake of Jatropha curcas seed residue exhibited ample protein, and could be applied in bio-medical, bio-resources, or food industrial products. Protein concentration process using membrane module system combined with the control design has a significant advantage on energy saving compared to the heat drying of protein solution. However, fouling, large membrane area and frequent membrane cleaning will increase the energy consumption and operation cost for the protein concentration process with filter membrane. In this study, the membrane filtration for protein concentration will be conducted. The discussion of control factors, membrane pore size (X1), pH value (X2) and transmembrane pressure (X3), for protein concentration process with response surface methodology (RSM) were discussed. The results showed that R2R2 value for each model was close to one. Future investigation on the mechatronics integration of the membrane separation and purification system will be needed for commercial applications.