Ultrasound assisted enzymatic degumming of crude soybean oil

The present work deals with ultrasound assisted enzymatic degumming (UAED) of crude soybean oil quantifying the extent of degumming (EOD), cavitational yield and synergistic index (f) for the combination approaches. The effect of different operating parameters such as enzyme loading, pH, presence of water, temperature and ultrasonic power on the EOD has been investigated. Ultrasound combined with enzyme at loading of 2.0 ml/L resulted in EOD as 92.2% under ambient conditions. Addition of water (5%) in combination with ultrasound and enzyme at 2.0 ml/L loading and pH of 5 resulted in maximum EOD (98.4%) in 120 min of treatment. The extent of phospholipid separation was also observed to be dependent on the power dissipation and maximum phospholipids separation was obtained at 100 W. Scale-up studies were performed at 500 ml and 1 L operating volume under optimized conditions of 2.0 ml/L as the enzyme loading, pH of 5, 5% water addition and ultrasonic power of 100 W where 93.63% and 91.15% phospholipid separation respectively was obtained. The effects of ultrasonic treatment were also quantified in terms of the acid value reduction and oxidative stability for the processed oil. It was demonstrated that suitable reduction in acid value (final value less than 1) and oxidative stability (TOTOX less than 4) is effectively obtained using UAED. Overall the approach of UAED was established to show much higher efficacy for soybean oil processing as compared to only ultrasound or only enzymatic treatment.