I’m interested in the process of degumming. Degum reagents of course require water.
Say I’ve got some winterized crude, which has had solvent removed—if I were to heat this up, stir and add water, ethanol, and my degumming reagent (either citric acid or enzymes), could I:
make ethanol and water immiscible by “salting out” the water? What salts are preferable?
still remove gums by centrifugation?
will there be residual salt in the ethanol/oleoresin mixture? What can be done with these?
Is there an alternative method that doesn’t require the use of an alkane (hexane)?
Alternatively, if I were to heat water and oleoresin (without ethanol) who could guess as to whether it would be seemingly homogenous (i.e. I could dissolve my degumming reagent in it)
Just for the sake of maintaining a simple workflow, not introducing additional risks to the lab, and cause it seems like a good tek to use if it’s feasible.
Alkanes would certainly simplify this process very easily, but I fear introducing even residual amounts of alkanes into a product.
the bp of all is pentane is so low, but i agree on residuals- i am still calibrating my GC but plan on getting experiments done on purging tek- will keep you apprised
From some limited experiences.
Ethanol doesn’t really hate salt water that much. You won’t get crazy distinct layers. Maybe try it real quick to make sure. You might need a bunch of time or a centrifuge to really get proper separation.
I’ve found isopropyl really hates salt water though. It has a very distinct separation immediately.
Good to know! I just read a research paper on this and it looks like you get about 10% water retention in ethanol if you saturate the solution with K2CO3 (potash)
We’ve got a centrifuge so I’ll see what that does to assist
